Mark Bas­sant

Lead Ed­i­tor, In­ves­tiga­tive Desk

Five weeks af­ter po­lice first raid­ed the Drugs Sou-Sou (DSS) head­quar­ters in La Hor­quet­ta, of­fi­cers of the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau and Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch re­turned to the venue yes­ter­day and seized mil­lions of dol­lars, sev­er­al re­ceipt books and oth­er doc­u­ments as they in­ten­si­fied their in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the mat­ter.

This time, how­ev­er, the two Ba­jan po­lice of­fi­cers and one UK in­ves­ti­ga­tor now here on the in­vi­ta­tion of the Gov­ern­ment to as­sist of­fi­cers in the case, were in­stru­men­tal in co-or­di­nat­ing the op­er­a­tion, ac­cord­ing to Ag Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob.

“They were some­what of the brain­child in this op­er­a­tion, though they were not there phys­i­cal­ly,” Ja­cob told Guardian Me­dia hours af­ter the raid.

Ques­tioned about the UK in­ves­ti­ga­tor’s ar­rival in T&T, since this was not re­vealed be­fore, Ja­cob con­firmed one of them was al­ready here and on the ground.

Police officers pack documents into their vehicle after a raid on DSS' office on Kathleen Warner Drive, La Horquetta, yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

“He came just af­ter the of­fi­cers from Bar­ba­dos ar­rived and has been help­ing since then,” Ja­cob said.

Asked about the ar­rival of the oth­er UK in­ves­ti­ga­tors, Ja­cob said they were cur­rent­ly as­sist­ing “vir­tu­al­ly.”

Guardian Me­dia was told that a Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau team un­der Sgt Sil­ver re­turned to the house where DSS op­er­ates, along Kath­leen Warn­er Dri­ve, Phase One, La Hor­quet­ta, short­ly af­ter 10.30 am yes­ter­day. They lat­er called in mem­bers of the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch to as­sist af­ter mon­ey was re­cov­ered. The of­fi­cers, armed with the ap­pro­pri­ate war­rants, spent close to four and a half hours at the house and seized mil­lions in cash, hun­dreds of re­ceipt books, doc­u­ments con­tain­ing line pay­ments to thou­sands of in­di­vid­u­als and oth­er rel­e­vant doc­u­ments.

The cash, seized un­der the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act, was se­cured by Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch of­fi­cers and tak­en away to be checked and prop­er­ly ver­i­fied. This was done to pre­vent what oc­curred five weeks ago, when mon­ey a pur­port­ed­ly $22 mil­lion seized at the site was tak­en to the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion, on­ly to be re­turned to DSS head Ker­ron Clarke mere hours lat­er by ju­nior cops at the sta­tion unau­tho­rised to do so be­fore the amount and source of the funds could be ver­i­fied.

A police officer cautions members of the public as the walk by the DSS office on Kathleen Warner Drive, La Horquetta, during a raid on the compound yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

The re­turn of the seized mon­ey to Clarke dur­ing the first raid on Sep­tem­ber 21 trig­gered a ma­jor in­ves­ti­ga­tion by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith with the help of the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau and Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch. This af­ter one mem­ber of the raid­ing unit was caught on video al­leged­ly stuff­ing mon­ey in­to his uni­form and oth­er TTPS and De­fence Force mem­bers were named as af­fil­i­ates of the DSS op­er­a­tion who were paid to pro­tect its op­er­a­tions. Four cops were sus­pend­ed and 10 oth­ers trans­ferred dur­ing the ear­ly stages of the probe by Grif­fith, who is ex­pect­ed back from va­ca­tion in Ire­land on the week­end.

Ja­cob, who is over­see­ing all the probes in Grif­fith’s ab­sence, yes­ter­day con­firmed they want­ed to con­firm the fig­ure this time be­fore iden­ti­fy­ing the quan­ti­ty.

“It is mil­lions, so the FIB has to count the mon­ey, so we can­not say at this point the ex­act sum,” he said.

Ja­cob ac­knowl­edged that the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch and Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau were work­ing to­geth­er in the DSS in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which is not on­ly look­ing at why po­lice of­fi­cers re­leased the seized mon­ey in the first raid be­fore it was count­ed but the TTDF mem­ber ac­cused of theft dur­ing the raid. Added to this, Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch in­ves­ti­ga­tors are still try­ing to piece to­geth­er the DSS’ source of funds and are trac­ing com­plex fi­nan­cial trails and bank­ing trans­ac­tions as­so­ci­at­ed with sev­er­al banks dur­ing their in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Members of the public look on during the police exercise at the Drugs Sou Sou headquarters on Kathleen Warner Drive, La Horquetta, yesterday.

ABNRAHAM DIAZ

A se­nior in­ves­ti­ga­tor told Guardian Me­dia that dur­ing yes­ter­day’s op­er­a­tion, Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau of­fi­cers called in the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch af­ter dis­cov­er­ing close to $6 mil­lion in cash on the premis­es. The mon­ey was tak­en to the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain and Clarke, along with lawyer Sio Sookdeo, ac­com­pa­nied them there, where the mon­ey was to be checked and ver­i­fied in Clarke’s pres­ence.

Ear­li­er on, when po­lice ar­rived at the DSS base, Clarke, clear­ly per­turbed by their pres­ence, live-streamed the raid on In­sta­gram to show of­fi­cers were there a sec­ond time and briefly re­marked in the two-minute video, “I am be­ing raid­ed again.”

Sev­er­al peo­ple com­ment­ed dur­ing his live stream.

One per­son said: “All I want to know is what go­ing on with To­ba­go.”

An­oth­er re­marked, “Like Bar­ba­dos reach,” while an­oth­er view­er said, “I dun­no why I cyar get my mon­ey, all yuh po­lice sick­en­ing.”

Ear­li­er this month, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said Gov­ern­ment had sought for­eign as­sis­tance with the DSS in­ves­ti­ga­tion due to the al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion lev­elled against TTPS mem­bers.

Speak­ing at a PNM post-Bud­get fo­rum in Bel­mont, Row­ley had warned, “For a mem­ber of the De­fence Force to stand up on the front page of the news­pa­per telling the coun­try I am the one or­gan­is­ing this, that is not a sou-sou, that is a threat to the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go and if we don’t in­ves­ti­gate it prop­er­ly it will be can­cer that will eat the soul of this na­tion.”