The TTPS is now part of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the op­er­a­tions of Get­GXL in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion was launched last week by the Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion, which stat­ed at that time that it had “tak­en note of com­plaints cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia as it per­tains to the en­ti­ty known as GET­GXL. The TTSEC is al­so in re­ceipt of in­for­ma­tion that was sub­mit­ted anony­mous­ly, and which is cur­rent­ly en­gag­ing our at­ten­tion.”

The TTSEC con­firmed the Po­lice Ser­vice’s in­volve­ment in the probe in an of­fi­cial state­ment to­day, not­ing that this fol­lowed an in­crease in the num­ber of “al­le­ga­tions of per­sons be­ing de­fraud­ed of large sums of mon­ey by the op­er­a­tors of a sus­pect­ed pro­hib­it­ed scheme.”

“TTSEC wish­es to thank mem­bers of the pub­lic who have al­ready come for­ward with in­for­ma­tion that could as­sist with this joint in­quiry,” the Com­mis­sion said in its state­ment.

Not­ing that pyra­mid schemes are pro­hib­it­ed un­der this coun­try’s se­cu­ri­ties law, the TTSEC urged oth­er vic­tims of sus­pect­ed in­vest­ment fraud to come for­ward and share their in­for­ma­tion with the cur­rent probe.

“Any in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed to the TTSEC re­gard­ing this spe­cif­ic mat­ter will great­ly as­sist in our in­quiries,” it said.

Per­sons who be­lieve they are a vic­tim of a pro­hib­it­ed scheme have sev­er­al op­tions to file a com­plaint with the TTSEC, via:

Web­site… https://www.ttsec.org.tt/in­vestor-pro­tec­tion/com­plaint-form/

Writ­ten com­plaint… sub­mit­ted via email to mar­ket­com­plaints@ttsec.org.tt; or di­rect mail to Lev­els 22-23, Tow­er D, In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre, Port of Spain.

Mo­bile app… through the TTSEC’s in­vestor pro­tec­tion mo­bile ap­pli­ca­tion, which is avail­able for down­load on the Google Play Store for An­droid de­vices, and the App Store for Ap­ple de­vices. Once the app has been down­loaded, users can nav­i­gate to ei­ther “Sub­mit a Com­plaint” or “Re­port a Scam”.  The scam re­port­ing fea­ture al­lows for anonymi­ty.

In per­son… at TTSEC of­fices lo­cat­ed at Lev­els 22-23, Tow­er D, In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre, Port of Spain.

The TTSEC says when sub­mit­ting a for­mal com­plaint, vic­tims of in­vest­ment fraud are en­cour­aged to pro­vide the fol­low­ing:

●   De­tails of the com­plaint in chrono­log­i­cal or­der;

●   Copies of all sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion, in­clud­ing forms, agree­ments, and writ­ten com­mu­ni­ca­tion (in­clud­ing mes­sages/texts) be­tween the par­ties in­volved; and

●   Au­dio or video files.

Fur­ther guid­ance on the TTSEC’s process to lodge a for­mal com­plaint can be ac­cessed on the Com­mis­sion's web­site via https://www.ttsec.org.tt/about-us/in­vestor-com­plaints/

The Leg­is­la­tion

Un­der Sec­tion 165A(1) of the Se­cu­ri­ties Act Chap­ter 83:02, a pro­hib­it­ed scheme in­cludes a scheme in which:

“(a) a busi­ness is struc­tured in such a way that the re­turns an in­vestor or client earns is di­rect­ly tied to the num­ber of per­sons he re­cruits to join the scheme;

(b) the amount of in­come a per­son earns while par­tic­i­pat­ing in the scheme de­pends on his rank in the scheme, where such rank is re­lat­ed to when a per­son joins the scheme; …

(d) a per­son is re­quired to pur­chase a fi­nan­cial prod­uct or fi­nan­cial train­ing of­fered by the scheme be­fore he can par­tic­i­pate in and earn in­come from the scheme, and nei­ther the prod­uct nor the train­ing can be of­fered for re­sale to the gen­er­al pub­lic.”

The full list of pro­hib­it­ed schemes can be ac­cessed via our web­site at https://www.ttsec.org.tt/wp-con­tent/up­loads/Act-No.-16-of-2021.pdf

Sec­tions 165A(2), (3) and (4) fur­ther pro­vide that a per­son who es­tab­lish­es or op­er­ates, know­ing­ly par­tic­i­pates, or know­ing­ly ad­ver­tis­es a pro­hib­it­ed scheme is li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to a fine of ten mil­lion dol­lars ($10,000,000) and to im­pris­on­ment for ten years; five mil­lion dol­lars ($5,000,000) and to im­pris­on­ment for five years; and three mil­lion dol­lars ($3,000,000) and to im­pris­on­ment for two years, re­spec­tive­ly.