The al­leged ir­reg­u­lar­i­ty in the de­liv­ery of ex­am pa­pers from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion's head­quar­ters on Hayes Street, St Clair, has en­gaged the at­ten­tion of the Fraud Squad. Up to late yes­ter­day, de­tails of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­mained lim­it­ed. How­ev­er, it was con­firmed by sev­er­al se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers. The T&T Guardian was re­li­ably in­formed that the po­lice were con­tact­ed by min­istry staff af­ter learn­ing about the miss­ing pa­pers yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. A sus­pect, who is as­signed to the min­istry's of­fices, was up to late last night be­ing in­ter­ro­gat­ed by in­ves­ti­ga­tors in re­la­tion to the in­ci­dent. Se­nior po­lice sources said the sus­pect was de­tained af­ter in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­viewed CCTV footage cap­tured by se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras po­si­tion at the stor­age rooms where the ex­am pa­pers are stored be­fore dis­tri­b­u­tion to schools and ex­am cen­tres.

The T&T Guardian un­der­stands that the ex­am pa­pers were for two up­com­ing Caribbean Ad­vance Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tions (CAPE). When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh con­firmed the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Gopeesingh said: "The per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the min­istry is keep­ing me abreast of the sit­u­a­tion." He said the min­istry re­ceived re­ports of some schools re­ceiv­ing ex­am­i­na­tions pa­pers late for yes­ter­day's Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) Eng­lish A ex­ams. "I am ad­vised that some stu­dents sat the ex­am at 11.30 am-al­most two hours late," Gopeesingh said.

He said that a cou­ple of schools com­plained of not re­ceiv­ing any pa­pers at all. "The Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil was con­tact­ed and they ad­vised that a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion be con­duct­ed," he added. When a news team from the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the of­fices yes­ter­day, a po­lice fin­ger­print ex­pert was seen on the com­pound. Around 7.30 pm, se­nior mem­bers of staff at the min­istry were still seen walk­ing around the cor­ri­dors of the min­istry's of­fices.