When the $22 mil­lion was mys­te­ri­ous­ly re­turned to the CEO of DSS by po­lice of­fi­cers at the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion in the wee hours of last Wednes­day morn­ing, it trig­gered at least two par­al­lel in­ves­ti­ga­tions to de­ter­mine what ex­act­ly hap­pened on that day.

And while po­lice mull over the where­abouts of the mon­ey and the man be­hind the Drugs Sou Sou (DSS) scheme, army in­tel­li­gence sources said that on the morn­ing the mon­ey left the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion it was tak­en to a house in Tal­paro for safe­keep­ing while oth­er arrange­ments were be­ing made.

Guardian Me­dia was told that on Fri­day at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 9:15 pm, a Black Toy­ota For­tuner bear­ing a Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF) num­ber plate (reg­is­tra­tion num­ber with­held) with at least two in­di­vid­u­als loaded the mon­ey from the house and al­leged­ly drove to a heav­i­ly for­ti­fied and guard­ed state lo­ca­tion (name with­held) where the mon­ey is now be­ing kept. This par­tic­u­lar ve­hi­cle is fre­quent­ly used by one of the DSS ad­mins, who is al­so a mem­ber of the TTDF.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors re­turned to the La Hor­quet­ta apart­ment on Wednes­day af­ter­noon with a search war­rant in hand hop­ing to speak with the DSS CEO and pre­sum­ably take pos­ses­sion of the mon­ey, Guardian Me­dia was told. But four days lat­er, the po­lice can­not lo­cate the Lance Cor­po­ral or find the mil­lions once stored at the apart­ment.

So what ex­act­ly hap­pened on the day of the seizure?

Se­nior in­ves­ti­ga­tors told Guardian Me­dia that of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial Re­sponse Op­er­a­tions Team (SORT) ar­rived at the apart­ment af­ter ob­tain­ing in­for­ma­tion about sev­er­al peo­ple gath­er­ing and breach­ing the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance due to COVID-19.

The DSS CEO and own­er of the prop­er­ty was not at the apart­ment when po­lice ar­rived, but in­ves­ti­ga­tors said a phone call had been made to the own­er of the apart­ment and he in­di­cat­ed that he would be re­turn­ing short­ly with his lawyer.

SORT of­fi­cers were lat­er con­front­ed by a 47-year-old man who they lat­er found out was a war­rant of­fi­cer with the TTDF. He ex­plained to them that he was mere­ly clean­ing the yard in the ab­sence of the own­er. The man who was lat­er searched was found with a pis­tol, usu­al­ly on­ly li­cenced to be used on a fir­ing range, and 28 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion. One can legal­ly car­ry up to 25 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion.

A SORT of­fi­cer lat­er searched a near­by knap­sack which the TTDF sol­dier claimed con­tained a cov­er­all. In the knap­sack, po­lice found huge stacks of $100 notes which amount­ed to $700,000. That quan­ti­ty of mon­ey was lat­er hand­ed over to the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch (FIB).

At the apart­ment, po­lice no­ticed the move­ment of peo­ple through a win­dow, even when the own­er of the prop­er­ty had in­di­cat­ed he was not at home. The peo­ple in the house were lat­er de­tained but no one said who the mon­ey be­longed to.

Se­nior po­lice sources said that the po­lice se­cured the premis­es and con­tact was made with of­fi­cers of the North­ern Di­vi­sion to get a search war­rant.

Some­time af­ter, an in­spec­tor and a po­lice con­sta­ble ar­rived on the scene and met with SORT of­fi­cers. It was on­ly lat­er a woman who was de­tained as one of the sus­pects told po­lice she was the com­mon-law wife of the own­er of the apart­ment, who po­lice said nev­er showed up.

Po­lice lat­er ex­e­cut­ed the war­rant and dur­ing a search of the premis­es, they found mil­lions of dol­lars hid­den in the ceil­ing, the wa­ter tank, and in box­es in the apart­ment.

Hours lat­er the mon­ey was pre­pared for trans­port by the joint team of of­fi­cers on the scene from the North­ern Di­vi­sion and SORT.

The mon­ey ar­rived at the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 6:35 pm. How­ev­er, the count­ing of the mon­ey did not start un­til 8:30 pm since po­lice of­fi­cers were await­ing the three mon­ey coun­ters that would be lat­er brought by of­fi­cers of the FIB. An in­spec­tor at­tached to the FIB who vis­it­ed the sta­tion lat­er left. Two of­fi­cers of the FIB to­geth­er with four of­fi­cers of the North­ern Di­vi­sion and the lawyer rep­re­sent­ing the DSS CEO and his com­mon-law wife were in the room dur­ing the count­ing of the mon­ey.

Sources fa­mil­iar with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion told Guardian Me­dia that close to mid­night of­fi­cers of the FIB left and they in­di­cat­ed they would re­turn in the morn­ing to se­cure the mon­ey for fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Po­lice sources said in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed that while the mon­ey was be­ing count­ed, a se­nior of­fi­cer and a con­sta­ble from the North­ern Di­vi­sion vis­it­ed the DSS CEO at his La Hor­quet­ta premis­es where there was a con­ver­sa­tion.

In the wee hours of Wednes­day morn­ing, ac­cord­ing to in­ves­ti­ga­tors, an en­try was made in the po­lice di­ary in which the mon­ey was re­leased to the DSS CEO who ap­peared at the po­lice sta­tion for the first time.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the of­fi­cers' con­duct and the con­ver­sa­tion they al­leged­ly had with the DSS CEO ear­li­er at his apart­ment is now the sub­ject of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Sources said that the of­fi­cers could face dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion and if found cul­pa­ble could al­so face crim­i­nal charges of per­vert­ing the course of jus­tice and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.

Se­nior in­ves­ti­ga­tors con­firmed all rel­e­vant per­son­nel will be in­ter­viewed about this mat­ter.

Ques­tions to TTDF:

Guardian Me­dia called and sent What­sApp mes­sages to TTDF of­fi­cials for a com­ment on the mat­ter.

1. Good af­ter­noon Sir, in ref­er­ence to the of­fi­cer from the TTDF who is al­so the DSS CEO, is the army con­sid­er­ing any dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion?

2. There are al­so al­le­ga­tions that a TTDF ve­hi­cle was used to trans­port the mon­ey af­ter it was tak­en out the po­lice sta­tion on Wednes­day and moved to the house be­fore a TTDF ve­hi­cle was loaded up with the mon­ey on Fri­day night and trans­port­ed to a se­cure lo­ca­tion. Please com­ment?

3. Con­sid­er­ing the huge amounts of mon­ey and al­le­ga­tions of mon­ey laun­der­ing what is the TTDF's po­si­tion?

4. Was the of­fi­cer giv­en per­mis­sion to be­come a li­cenced mon­ey lender while serv­ing as a Lance Cor­po­ral? Is this per­mis­si­ble in the eyes of the TTDF?

Up to late last night, there was no re­sponse from the TTDF.

1. Good af­ter­noon Sir, in ref­er­ence to the of­fi­cer from the TTDF who is al­so the DSS CEO, is the army con­sid­er­ing any dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion?

2. There are al­so al­le­ga­tions that a TTDF ve­hi­cle was used to trans­port the mon­ey af­ter it was tak­en out the po­lice sta­tion on Wednes­day and moved to the house be­fore a TTDF ve­hi­cle was loaded up with the mon­ey on Fri­day night and trans­port­ed to a se­cure lo­ca­tion. Please com­ment?

3. Con­sid­er­ing the huge amounts of mon­ey and al­le­ga­tions of mon­ey laun­der­ing what is the TTDF's po­si­tion?

4. Was the of­fi­cer giv­en per­mis­sion to be­come a li­cenced mon­ey lender while serv­ing as a Lance Cor­po­ral? Is this per­mis­si­ble in the eyes of the TTDF?