Derek Achong

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice has suc­ceed­ed in its ap­peal over a judge’s de­ci­sion to re­ject its at­tempts to seize the as­sets of two fam­i­lies of cen­tral Trinidad al­leged­ly linked to drug traf­fick­ing.

In a judg­ment de­liv­ered this week, Ap­pel­late Judges Al­lan Men­don­ca, Mark Mo­hammed, and Maria Wil­son ruled that the judge got it wrong when she re­voked her de­ci­sions to grant pre­lim­i­nary un­ex­plained wealth or­ders (PU­WOs) against the fam­i­lies from Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni, and En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas.

In analysing the ev­i­dence pre­sent­ed by the TTPS in re­la­tion to both fam­i­lies, the ap­peal pan­el ruled that the PU­WOs should not have been re­voked by the judge as the TTPS met the re­quired cri­te­ria.

The pan­el re­in­stat­ed the PU­WOs and re­mit­ted them to the High Court for fur­ther hear­ing.

In the ap­peal, the pan­el con­sid­ered the in­ter­pre­ta­tion and scope of the Civ­il As­set Re­cov­ery and Man­age­ment and Un­ex­plained Wealth Act.

The judges point­ed out that while the leg­is­la­tion, passed by Par­lia­ment in 2019, pro­vid­ed a process of pur­su­ing wealth with no need for the sub­jects to have crim­i­nal con­vic­tions, the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act (POCA) pro­vides a sim­i­lar regime based on con­vic­tions for spec­i­fied of­fences.

They not­ed that for the un­ex­plained wealth leg­is­la­tion to ap­ply, po­lice of­fi­cers must have rea­son­able sus­pi­cion that a cit­i­zen’s wealth was ob­tained through the com­mis­sion of a spec­i­fied of­fence and ap­ply for a PU­WO.

“We think it nec­es­sary to note that though the thresh­old test of rea­son­able sus­pi­cion in law is a low one it should not be mis­in­ter­pret­ed to con­vey the im­pres­sion that any­thing less than a scrupu­lous­ly con­duct­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tion is re­quired,” they said.

The judges ac­cept­ed sub­mis­sions from Se­nior Coun­sel Fyard Ho­sein, who led the TTPS’s le­gal team, and claimed that the judge, who grant­ed the PU­WOs, was wrong to re­voke them as she felt that the leg­is­la­tion did not have a ret­ro­spec­tive ef­fect on in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­duct­ed pri­or to its procla­ma­tion.

Ho­sein al­so claimed that while mem­bers of both fam­i­lies were last charged with drug of­fences be­fore the leg­is­la­tion was en­act­ed, the in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to both in­ci­dents con­tin­ued af­ter.

“Rea­son­able sus­pi­cion is not how­ev­er sta­t­ic. By the very na­ture of the nat­ur­al ebb and flow of the in­ves­tiga­tive process, once it is formed, it is ca­pa­ble of per­pet­u­a­tion,” the judges said.

In his sub­mis­sions, at­tor­ney Jagdeo Singh, who led the le­gal team of a cou­ple from St He­le­na, said that the judge’s de­ci­sion in his client’s case was cor­rect.

He re­peat­ed­ly claimed that the TTPS failed to ad­duce suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence link­ing his client’s prop­er­ty to al­leged drug traf­fick­ing for which the hus­band was charged.

He al­so not­ed that a val­u­a­tion of the prop­er­ty in 2016 did not con­sid­er that the cou­ple pur­chased the land in 2009 for $80,000 and that there would have been an ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the val­ue of the prop­er­ty over time.

Singh al­so point­ed out that for a PU­WO to be grant­ed, ei­ther the Comp­trol­ler of the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion, the Chair­man of the Board of In­land Rev­enue or the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er must rea­son­ably sus­pect that wealth over $500,000 was ob­tained through spec­i­fied crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

While he ad­mit­ted that the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er may del­e­gate his func­tions to a high-rank­ing of­fi­cer, as was done in his clients’ case, he ques­tioned how the of­fi­cer could have formed the req­ui­site sus­pi­cion over the cou­ple’s as­sets, when he was del­e­gat­ed a week be­fore the ap­pli­ca­tion was made in 2019.

In his sub­mis­sions, at­tor­ney Navin­dra Ram­nanan, who is rep­re­sent­ing the oth­er fam­i­ly, whose $12 mil­lion prop­er­ty port­fo­lio is the sub­ject of the or­der, not­ed that one fam­i­ly mem­ber of the three list­ed passed away while the is­sue was be­ing de­ter­mined.

Ram­nanan said that while the leg­is­la­tion al­lowed the State to go af­ter the es­tate of a dead per­son iden­ti­fied un­der the leg­is­la­tion, his sur­viv­ing clients have a pend­ing case over the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the pro­vi­sion.

“You can­not call up­on a dead per­son to ex­plain their wealth,” Ram­nanan said.

The TTPS was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, Ravi Ra­j­coomar, Ami­rah Ra­haman, Ne­tram Kow­lessar, Kristal Mad­hos­ingh and Tiffany Ali.

Kiel Takals­ingh and Ka­ri­na Singh ap­peared along­side Singh for the St He­le­na fam­i­ly, while Gary Han­nays ap­peared along­side Ram­nanan for the oth­er fam­i­ly.

In a press re­lease, the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs wel­comed the out­come of the case.

“The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al wish­es to as­sure the pub­lic that to­day’s de­ci­sion is of great sig­nif­i­cance and as­sis­tance to the State in tack­ling the scourge of crime and tak­ing prof­its out of crime,” it stat­ed.

It said the case cleared the way for sim­i­lar ap­pli­ca­tions to de­prive per­sons of the ben­e­fits of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

“The court fur­ther recog­nised that T&T, by the in­tro­duc­tion of this un­ex­plained wealth regime, is at­tempt­ing to com­bat pro­lif­ic crim­i­nal­i­ty and its wide rang­ing reper­cus­sions af­fil­i­at­ed with drug traf­fick­ing, se­ri­ous crime and mon­ey laun­der­ing,” it said.