For­fei­ture pro­ceed­ings com­menced against three sus­pects af­ter Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard SC, con­clud­ed that there was suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to pro­ceed, un­der the pro­vi­sions of the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, on June 9 and 11, 2021, a joint op­er­a­tion was con­duct­ed by mem­bers of the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch (FIB) and the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion, where the of­fi­cers searched the premis­es of Varune Ar­joon, Shelly Ann Ram­lochan and Vedesh Ma­haraj at Ghan­di Vil­lage, Debe.

Dur­ing the search­es a large quan­ti­ty of cash to­tal­ing $2,146,103 TT cur­ren­cy, $58,194 US cur­ren­cy, $1,265 Cana­di­an cur­ren­cy and $245 EC cur­ren­cy were found, along with a large quan­ti­ty of un­cus­tomed al­co­hol and a quan­ti­ty of pep­per spray (47 cans) at var­i­ous lo­ca­tions with­in the house. A Taser and two firearms with 28 rounds of nine-mil­lime­tre am­mu­ni­tion were al­so found in a ve­hi­cle with a quan­ti­ty of the cash.

Ram­lochan was charged with Pos­ses­sion of Firearms for the Pur­pose of Traf­fick­ing, Pos­ses­sion of Am­mu­ni­tion and Pos­ses­sion of a Pro­hib­it­ed Weapon (Taser) on June 13, 2021 by PC Wood­ley of the FIB.

Ma­haraj was charged with Pos­ses­sion of Pro­hib­it­ed Weapons for the Pur­pose of Traf­fick­ing in re­la­tion to the pep­per spray on June 13, 2021 by PC Wood­ley of the FIB.

Ar­joon was charged with of­fences re­lat­ing to the un­cus­tomed goods (al­co­hol) by Cus­toms Of­fi­cer Jer­maine Roberts in June 2021.

The to­tal sum of cash was sub­se­quent­ly seized and de­tained in keep­ing with the pro­vi­sion of Sec­tion 38 of the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act Chap­ter 11:27. Fur­ther to the charges be­ing laid, a fi­nan­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tion was sub­se­quent­ly con­duct­ed in re­la­tion to the cash seized.

The file was sub­mit­ted to the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion, where the DPP found suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to com­mence for­fei­ture pro­ceed­ings against the afore­men­tioned sus­pects in re­la­tion to the to­tal sum of cash seized. Two for­fei­ture ap­pli­ca­tions were filed on June 9 and 14, 2023 re­spec­tive­ly rep­re­sent­ing the to­tal sum. The mat­ter is cur­rent­ly be­fore the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates’ Court.

The fi­nan­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tion was con­duct­ed by Sgt Samuel of the FIB and over­seen by ACP Wen­dell Lu­cas of the White-Col­lar Crime Di­vi­sion.