Ak­ile Si­mon

Po­lice in­ves­ti­gat­ing al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion in­volv­ing state-owned Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (Ude­cott) and Sun­way raid­ed the of­fices of the com­pa­nies yes­ter­day. Of­fi­cers ex­e­cut­ed search war­rants at Sun­way's St Clair Av­enue, St Clair, of­fice; David Mont­gomery and Char­tered Ac­coun­tants at 118 Gor­don and Aber­crom­by Streets, Port-of-Spain; Ude­cott's Sackville Street of­fices and the home of a Ude­cott di­rec­tor. At the end of the ex­er­cis­es, po­lice seized hun­dreds of fi­nan­cial, con­trac­tu­al and le­gal records. They al­so seized sev­er­al com­put­ers, hard-dri­ves, lap tops, fax ma­chines, pho­to-copiers and CCTV footage from the of­fices.

Of­fi­cers met with Ude­cott's chief op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer (COO) Nee­lan­da Ram­paul and in­formed her they (of­fi­cers) were there to search for items list­ed on a war­rant.

Among the items seized at Ude­cott were board meet­ing min­utes, con­tracts and fi­nan­cial records re­lat­ing to the com­pa­ny and CH Con­struc­tion, which is a sub­sidiary of Sun­way. A po­lice source said Ram­paul was co-op­er­a­tive dur­ing their search­es. Po­lice spent more than 10 hours at Ude­cott's of­fice. At the time of the search­es, Ude­cott's new ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Jer­lean John was not present. While at the of­fice, of­fi­cers dis­cov­ered that most of the com­pa­ny's fi­nan­cial ac­counts were un­der­tak­en by David Mont­gomery and Com­pa­ny Char­tered Ac­coun­tants, lo­cat­ed at the cor­ner of Gor­don and Aber­crom­by Streets, Port-of-Spain. This was the first time the char­tered ac­count­ing firm's name sur­faced, fol­low­ing cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions in­volv­ing Ude­cott, Sun­way and CH Con­struc­tion.

A ju­di­cial source told the T&T Guardian a search war­rant was signed by act­ing Chief Mag­is­trate Mark Welling­ton. Sev­er­al box­es con­tain­ing records al­so were seized from the busi­ness place. The ac­count­ing firm, po­lice said, dealt with the dis­burse­ments of bil­lions of dol­lars in con­struc­tion and le­gal con­tracts on be­half of Ude­cott, for sev­er­al years. Po­lice ob­tained sev­en war­rants but on­ly four were ex­e­cut­ed. The war­rants were signed by Welling­ton at his cham­bers at the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court be­tween Tues­day af­ter­noon and yes­ter­day. Se­nior Supt Ter­ry Young, head of ACIB, who was man­dat­ed by Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er James Philbert to lead the probe, was seen at the of­fices, in­clud­ing Hart's home, giv­ing di­rec­tives to his ju­niors.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion is be­ing spear­head­ed by both the ACIB and the Fraud Squad, head­ed by Young and Se­nior Supt Harold Phillip. From as ear­ly as 4.30 am, 60 of­fi­cers as­signed to the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau (ACIB), Spe­cial Branch, Crim­i­nal In­tel­li­gence Unit (CIU) and the Fraud Squad, first went to the Cas­cade home of for­mer Ude­cott ex­ec­u­tive chair­man, Calder Hart. How­ev­er, of­fi­cers were un­able to ex­e­cute a search war­rant be­cause no one an­swered the bell.