Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Busi­ness­woman Vicky Boodram be­came the first per­son to be charged with mon­ey laun­der­ing un­der the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act (2000) yes­ter­day when she ap­peared in the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates Court ac­cused of com­mit­ting over $2 mil­lion in fraud.

Boodram, 30, of Siparia, was re­fused bail and ad­vised of her right to ap­ply to a judge in cham­bers for bail when she ap­peared be­fore act­ing deputy Chief Mag­is­trate Ra­jen­dra Ram­bachan ac­cused of us­ing ill-got­ten funds to buy re­al prop­er­ty and a Mer­cedes Benz. She was re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody for the five in­dictable of­fences which date from 2007 to 2010. Boodram, a for­mer singer, was ar­rest­ed last week Wednes­day by of­fi­cers of the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch, Port-of-Spain. Ram­bachan read the charges, which al­leged that, on or about Oc­to­ber 18, 2010, at San Fer­nan­do, Boodram dis­posed of $2,045,000 in cash in whole or in part by pur­chas­ing a house and land at Laz­zari Lands, Palmiste, know­ing or sus­pect­ing it was the pro­ceeds de­rived from her hav­ing com­mit­ted a spec­i­fied of­fence, to with the ob­tain­ing of the said sum in cash with in­tent to de­fraud and by virtue of a forged in­stru­ment, that is, a Wells Far­go Bank ir­rev­o­ca­ble stand­by let­ter of cred­it, dat­ed Ju­ly 22, 2010, know­ing the same to be forged, in con­tra­ven­tion of sec­tion 10 (a) of the Forgery Act Chap­ter 11:13 and con­trary to Sec­tion 43 of Pro­ceeds of Crime Act (2000) Chap­ter 11:27 as amend­ed.

She is al­so ac­cused that on or about Sep­tem­ber 17, 2010 at San?Fer­nan­do she dis­posed of $629,042.25 cash in whole or part by pur­chas­ing an E-Class Mer­cedes Benz, PCR 4200, know­ing or sus­pect­ing that it was the pro­ceeds de­rived from her hav­ing com­mit­ted a spec­i­fied of­fence, to wit the ob­tain­ing of the said sum in cash with in­tent to de­fraud and by virtue of a forged in­stru­ment, that is, a Wells Far­go Bank ir­rev­o­ca­ble stand­by let­ter of cred­it, dat­ed Ju­ly 22, 2010, know­ing the same to be forged, in con­tra­ven­tion of sec­tion 10 (a) of the Forgery Act Chap­ter 11:13 and con­trary to Sec­tion 43 of Pro­ceeds of Crime Act (2000) Chap­ter 11:27 as amend­ed. Boodram was al­so charged with two counts of ut­ter­ing forged doc­u­ments at First Cit­i­zens, High Street, Siparia, on Au­gust 29, 2007, name­ly two job let­ters from Umi Re­cruit­ing Ser­vice and a job let­ter from the Ex­port/Im­port Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go, con­trary to the Fraud Act. She was al­so charged with in­tent to de­fru­ad by ob­tain­ing, caus­ing or procur­ing a $50,000 lim­it cred­it card from FCB by virtue of three forged doc­u­ments, name­ly two job let­ters from Umi Re­cruit­ing Ser­vice and a job let­ter from the Ex­port/Im­port Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go. The charges arose out of Boodram's failed cruise.

The charges were laid by Con­sta­ble?Bri­an Joseph of the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch. Boodram was not called up­on to plead. She will reap­pear to­mor­row in the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates Court and on Fri­day in the Siparia Mag­is­trates Court for three of the five of­fences. De­fence at­tor­ney Ja­son Jack­son ap­plied for bail but court pros­e­cu­tor Ram­dath Phillip ob­ject­ed. Phillip said a namecheck trace on Boodram showed she had 19 pend­ing mat­ters in 2011. He said a fin­ger­print trace was not ac­com­pa­ny­ing the namecheck trace. He asked for an op­por­tu­ni­ty to do a fin­ger­print trace on Boodram to de­ter­mine if she had more pend­ing mat­ters or if she com­mit­ted any oth­er of­fences while on bail. Jack­son protest­ed. He said Boodram ad­mit­ted to the 19 pend­ing mat­ters and the po­lice had suf­fi­cient time to do a trace since she was ar­rest­ed last Wednes­day. He said when the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­le­ga­tions of fraud start­ed in 2011 and she had sur­ren­dered her pass­port she had not ab­scond­ed. Jack­son said the new charges could have been laid at the same time of the 19 oth­er of­fences last year since the of­fences arose out of two trans­ac­tions. How­ev­er, Ram­bachan queried: "The Forgery Act crimes should have come be­fore the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act? The char­ac­ter­is­tic of the charge is com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent."