SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

shar­lene.ram­per­sad@

guardian.co.tt

A mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar pyra­mid scheme was dis­man­tled yes­ter­day by po­lice in La Hor­quet­ta and nine peo­ple, in­clud­ing a sol­dier, were ar­rest­ed.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the group - the Drugs Sou Sou (DSS) - was set to pay out mul­ti­ple mem­bers yes­ter­day when the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team of the TTPS was dis­patched to con­trol the crowd.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith said the peo­ple gath­ered were in breach of the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance.

When the of­fi­cers ar­rived at the house on Kath­leen Warn­er Dri­ve, Phase One La Hor­quet­ta, with the mo­bile de­ten­tion bus in tow, those who were gath­ered scat­tered.

Sou Sou raid.

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SORT, led by Sgt Mark Her­nan­dez, then ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant on the prop­er­ty.

Se­nior in­ves­ti­ga­tors told Guardian Me­dia that sums of mon­ey were found hid­den in the apart­ment’s ceil­ing and in a wa­ter tank out­side. They al­so re­cov­ered large sums of new 100-dol­lar bills and $20 notes stacked in bales and se­cured with rub­ber bands in card­board box­es and garbage bags. They al­so found what ap­peared to be hun­dreds of re­ceipts for peo­ple who pos­si­bly con­tributed mon­ey to the pyra­mid scheme.

Up to late last night, of­fi­cers of the Fi­nance In­tel­li­gence Branch (FIB) were count­ing the mon­ey with the as­sis­tance of ma­chines to as­cer­tain the sum seized.

The count­ing of the mon­ey took place at the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion af­ter the mon­ey was trans­port­ed to the sta­tion un­der heavy po­lice guard.

Up to press time po­lice had count­ed $6 mil­lion and ex­pect­ed the process to go un­til mid­night.

In a TTPS re­lease, CoP Grif­fith said “when the po­lice find that amount of mon­ey, it will be seized as ev­i­dence.”

Sou Sou raid.

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He warned the pub­lic that when the po­lice re­ceive a tip-off they will find the lo­ca­tion and seize the mon­ey.

“That would mean peo­ple would lose their hard-earned mon­ey in­vest­ed in these schemes,” he said.

A Guardian Me­dia team vis­it­ed the area and saw sev­er­al groups of peo­ple watch­ing from a dis­tance as the po­lice car­ried out their op­er­a­tion.

Sev­er­al young men from the area, speak­ing on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, told Guardian Me­dia that since DSS be­gan its sou sou op­er­a­tions about two months ago, their lifestyles had im­proved.

“Peo­ple help­ing them­selves, buy­ing ve­hi­cles, pay­ing off their loans, we are liv­ing good now in La Hor­quet­ta,” one of them said.

An­oth­er said since the sou sou be­gan, Phase One was now called “Lit­tle Dubai.” He claimed the young men in the com­mu­ni­ty had turned away from il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties and had put their fo­cus on the sou sou.

Sou Sou raid.

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“Peo­ple com­ing in here like noth­ing with re­al mon­ey and they safe, they good, no­body not in­ter­fer­ing with them. Every­body look­ing out for each oth­er and the war­ring be­tween Phase One and Phase Two has calmed down. Why the po­lice must dis­rupt all of that?” he asked.

At 7 pm, Guardian Me­dia was told that about 200 peo­ple, all mem­bers of the DSS group, walked to the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion where the nine peo­ple and the mon­ey were tak­en.

The group chant­ed “Great is DSS” as they walked in a can­dle light vig­il-type pro­ces­sion.

In a brief in­ter­view af­ter the group got to the sta­tion, one man de­scribed the po­lice ac­tion as vic­tim­i­sa­tion. He said the ac­tion was a means of keep­ing poor peo­ple op­pressed.

Police officers outside a home on Kathleen Warner Drive, Phase 1, La Horquetta during the police execution of a search warrant on the property yesterday.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

“This is the sec­ond time they have come at this guy…he is em­pow­er­ing the poor and black peo­ple, once they shut this down there will be a great fall­out in La Hor­quet­ta. The Com­mis­sion­er knows they have to give back this mon­ey, I think it is even be­yond him that these in­struc­tions com­ing from right now,” the man, who al­so did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said.

Adding he had in­vest­ed $50,000 in the DSS, the man added, “That is my le­git­i­mate funds and in this day and age, I am go­ing to fight tooth and nail to get back my mon­ey. How is it their prob­lem with what I de­cide to do with my mon­ey? That is mine!”

He said the head of the group came out of the po­lice sta­tion around 6.30 pm and in­formed those gath­ered that his at­tor­neys were at the sta­tion and had ac­count­ed for all the mon­ey.

—With re­port­ing by Mark Bas­sant

Sou Sou raid.

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A police officer at the La Horquette Police Station speak to a group of people outiside the station last night. 9/22/20

Abraham-Diaz