Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

For­mer di­rec­tor of Caribbean Sea Works Ltd Kr­ish­na­mur­ti Ma­habir says he is not afraid to face the US Drug En­force­ment Ad­min­is­tra­tion (DEA) be­cause he had no in­volve­ment in the $644 mil­lion car­go of co­caine seized at Nor­folk, Vir­ginia, last month.The com­pa­ny was named as the en­ti­ty which shipped the il­le­gal car­go to Vir­ginia, but the com­pa­ny has been of­fi­cial­ly de­funct since its main own­er, John O'Sul­li­van, died in 2008.Speak­ing at his of­fice, PIK and As­so­ciates, at Cham­roo Branch Trace, Clax­ton Bay, yes­ter­day, Ma­habir said he re­moved him­self as a di­rec­tor of the de­funct com­pa­ny on De­cem­ber 13, 2012.A doc­u­ment of the trans­ac­tion, signed by au­tho­rised of­fi­cer Doolin Ra­goonath Ma­habir, showed that Mal­colm Browne, of Mil­ford Road, Scar­bor­ough, and Brigit­ta O'Sul­li­van, of Windy Ridge, Good­wood Park, Glen­coe, re­mained as di­rec­tors af­ter 2012.

Say­ing he was nev­er aware that Caribbean Sea Works was a front for drug smug­gling, Ma­habir said he had no plans to in­ves­ti­gate the com­pa­ny's op­er­a­tions af­ter he demit­ted of­fice.Ex­plain­ing how he be­came in­volved with the com­pa­ny in its ear­ly days, he said: "My name is list­ed as a di­rec­tor of the com­pa­ny be­cause I made an in­vest­ment with one of my clients, Vic­tor Jat­tan."Caribbean Sea Works had a con­tract to do the Scar­bor­ough jet­ty. They got the con­tract."I was put there to se­cure Vic­tor's in­ter­est. I nev­er had any sign­ing au­thor­i­ty or any­thing, so I am clear."When the own­er of the com­pa­ny died, Ma­habir said, the con­tract was ter­mi­nat­ed, leav­ing Jat­tan at a loss.Asked why he wait­ed un­til 2012 to re­move his name, Ma­habir said: "I for­got about it. I had no time to see about that. I was just there as a fig­ure­head."Right now I am in­volved in 15 or 20 com­pa­nies, so I am a busy man."Asked what prompt­ed him to re­move his name last year, Ma­habir said: "Com­pa­nies Reg­istry has penal­ties for the fil­ing of an­nu­al re­turns. I didn't want to get tied up in that be­cause there are hefty penal­ties tax-wise. When I re­alised that my name was still there, I took my name off."

He said when he saw him­self list­ed as a di­rec­tor of Caribbean Sea Works sev­er­al days ago, he was sur­prised."The own­er is dead, how was I to know his com­pa­ny was be­ing used as a front for drugs? I now know that," he said."This has af­fect­ed me but I have noth­ing to hide. I have over 300 clients and if my name gets dirty, we will run in­to prob­lems." He said he re­gret­ted his in­volve­ment at the com­pa­ny, but had full con­fi­dence that the DEA would crack the case.Asked whether he had re­ceived any calls from con­cerned clients, Ma­habir said no."My clients know that I am not on non­sense. I called up a few of them to tell them that I will be speak­ing with the DEA. I told them I had no clue what was go­ing on at the com­pa­ny."I am not wor­ried, be­cause I al­ways thought the com­pa­ny was de­funct since 2007 or 2008." Ma­habir said his ac­coun­tan­cy com­pa­ny was reg­is­tered with the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit and he was aware of the strin­gent rules in place to pre­vent mon­ey laun­der­ing.Asked what mea­sures should be put in place at the ports to thwart the transat­lantic drug trade, Ma­habir said no mat­ter what was done, the trade would con­tin­ue."You can nev­er stop crime. I can­not say what more could be done at the ports."Asked if there should be more sur­veil­lance sys­tems, Ma­habir said: "Yes, I guess so, but every­thing costs mon­ey. More mon­ey for more sur­veil­lance. Where we get­ting mon­ey?"