For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sen­a­tor Ger­ald Ramdeen have been ques­tioned by po­lice about their al­leged in­volve­ment in a mon­ey laun­der­ing scheme.

The po­lice ques­tion­ing came af­ter the men spent more than eight hours in cus­tody at the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­tiga­tive Bu­reau (ACIB) in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day.

While ACIB of­fi­cers and po­lice se­niors re­mained tight-lipped through­out the day, Guardian Me­dia was told that an in­ter­na­tion­al Queen’s Coun­sel is help­ing the State with its case against the two men.

Ac­cord­ing to sources in­side the ACIB camp, the for­eign QC worked for Ram­lo­gan dur­ing the time he was at­tor­ney gen­er­al and earned over $20 mil­lion in state briefs. It is al­leged the QC had an agree­ment to pay back a per­cent­age of the mon­ey to Ram­lo­gan in ex­change for the brief.

Guardian Me­dia was told it is this mat­ter that formed the ba­sis of the State’s case against Ramdeen and Ram­lo­gan.

The QC, Guardian Me­dia was told, is ail­ing and is work­ing with the State in ex­change for some sort of le­nien­cy.

Just af­ter 5 pm yes­ter­day, both Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen ac­com­pa­nied po­lice to their re­spec­tive homes in Palmiste, San Fer­nan­do, where of­fi­cers al­so con­duct­ed a search. Po­lice al­so con­duct­ed a search at Ramdeen’s Wood­brook of­fice yes­ter­day.

The po­lice search was the cul­mi­na­tion of a long day of dra­ma for both Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen. Ram­lo­gan was de­tained by a Traf­fic In­dex of­fi­cer and two ACIB of­fi­cers at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port yes­ter­day morn­ing at 4.15 am. He was about to board a flight to Mi­a­mi to con­nect to the British Vir­gin Is­lands, where he is rep­re­sent­ing the BVI Speak­er of the House As­sem­bly, Ju­lian Wilcox, in a ju­di­cial re­view mat­ter.

Ramdeen was alert­ed that there was a war­rant for his ar­rest and turned him­self in at the ACIB of­fice at 7 am, where he was of­fi­cial­ly tak­en in­to cus­tody.

Ram­lo­gan is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Se­nior Coun­sel Pamela El­der, while Ramdeen is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Wayne Sturge.

More ar­rests to come

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the State has re­tained Queen’s Coun­sel Ed­ward Jenk­ins from Eng­land to pros­e­cute the case. Jenk­ins was sworn ­to the lo­cal bar to­day.

“Shock­waves will be go­ing through the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty, as this is num­ber one of about sev­en mat­ters to come,” re­vealed a le­gal source fol­low­ing the ar­rests.

The source said the oth­er high pro­file mat­ters near­ing com­ple­tion are al­so all linked to le­gal fees in­volv­ing oth­er pro­mi­nent lawyers.

“When the dots are con­nect­ed the pub­lic will see this type of in­ves­ti­ga­tion has nev­er been done in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” a se­nior Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial said last night, adding the coun­try can ex­pect more ar­rests with­in the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty.