Mark Bas­sant

Lead Ed­i­tor, In­ves­tiga­tive Desk

Close to half a mil­lion dol­lars is miss­ing from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard (TTCG) se­nior mess rates ac­count and a se­nior en­list­ed Coast Guard of­fi­cer with in­ti­mate knowl­edge about the fi­nan­cial run­nings is now the sub­ject of an in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the TTCG and has now widened to in­clude the po­lice.

Guardian Me­dia (GM) dur­ing a three week in­ves­ti­ga­tion found out about the pos­si­ble mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of funds that al­leged­ly oc­curred over the last year in which $375,000 went miss­ing from the TTCG se­nior mess rates ac­count at Re­pub­lic Bank in West Mall.

Se­nior Coast Guard sources ex­plained to GM that close to 370 of­fi­cers of the se­nior mess rates con­tribute $200 month­ly to the mess ac­count. Of that $150 is their con­tri­bu­tion to the an­nu­al Christ­mas din­ner, while the oth­er $50 goes to­wards the mess quar­ters up­keep.

In 2018, there were changes in the ex­ec­u­tive of the se­nior mess rate, but the of­fi­cial han­dover to the new ex­ec­u­tive sig­na­to­ries was on­ly done in Au­gust this year.

Days lat­er an au­dit be­gan and was con­duct­ed by Fleet Chief Pet­ty Of­fi­cer Bai­ley, al­so of the Act­ing Com­mand Fleet, where the fi­nan­cial ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties and pos­si­ble mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of funds were dis­cov­ered.

The find­ings of the au­dit were lat­er for­ward­ed to the Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer of the TTCG, Cap­tain Archer.

Cap­tain Archer in a brief tele­phone in­ter­view with GM in ear­ly No­vem­ber con­firmed there was an ac­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter.

GM sent six ques­tions about the in­ves­ti­ga­tion to the TTCG on No­vem­ber 8. Among the ques­tions sent to the TTCG was what ac­tion would be tak­en to re­cov­er the funds and what dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion will be tak­en against the of­fi­cer?

On No­vem­ber 11, a very brief re­sponse was sent to our ques­tions by the TTCG. It stat­ed, “The Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force is aware of the al­leged fi­nan­cial im­pro­pri­eties and is cur­rent­ly con­duct­ing in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the mat­ter.”

But the TTCG in a strange turn of events sent out a more de­tailed re­lease on a sto­ry GM had been work­ing on ex­clu­sive­ly to all me­dia hous­es.

The TTCG con­firmed in de­tail the find­ings of a GM in­ves­ti­ga­tion stat­ing, “The TTCG wished to ac­knowl­edge an in­ter­nal al­le­ga­tion of the mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of funds by a cur­rent serv­ing mem­ber of the or­gan­i­sa­tion.” Ac­cord­ing to the TTCG, “pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tions sug­gest fraud­u­lent ac­tiv­i­ty re­sult­ing in the mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of funds.”

The TTCG said it de­nounced any type of fraud­u­lent ac­tiv­i­ty in­volv­ing “its mem­bers and as such the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties have been no­ti­fied.”

In the re­lease, the TTCG said avail­able dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion will be tak­en if such ac­tiv­i­ties are proven against the in­di­vid­ual.

What the au­dit fur­ther re­vealed ac­cord­ing to GM’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion was that the $375,000 had been with­drawn over the last nine months from the Re­pub­lic Bank West Mall branch, al­leged­ly by the se­nior en­list­ed coast guard of­fi­cer in ques­tion.

The with­drawals were made af­ter the of­fi­cer had pre­vi­ous sig­na­to­ries sign blank cheques in which he would lat­er in­sert his name and cash the cheques.

GM was able to see a copy of one of the cheques.

Dur­ing the Coast Guard’s in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion they al­so un­cov­ered com­plaints by Es­tate 101, who had re­ceived at least two bounced cheques for this year.

Es­tate 101 lo­cat­ed in Mar­aval along the Sad­dle Road, hosts Car­ni­val, Christ­mas, and oth­er events.

It had re­ceived a bounced cheque in Jan­u­ary this year for out­stand­ing monies owed for the 2018 se­nior mess rate Christ­mas din­ner and par­ty at the venue, and an­oth­er one in June for ap­prox­i­mate­ly $120,000 as an ad­vance pay­ment for the venue for this year’s Christ­mas par­ty.

A se­nior Coast Guard source fa­mil­iar with the busi­ness arrange­ment said Es­tate 101’s man­age­ment was not pleased and asked for cash up­front in the fu­ture.

Es­tate 101 failed to re­spond to phone calls or emails from GM about out­stand­ing pay­ments.

Fol­low­ing the au­dit rev­e­la­tions that be­came known in­ter­nal­ly in the TTCG by ear­ly Sep­tem­ber, the se­nior en­list­ed Coast Guard of­fi­cer al­leged­ly con­fessed his wrong­do­ing to his col­leagues in the What­sApp se­nior rates mess chat group, which GM ob­tained in de­tail.

On Sep­tem­ber 19 the se­nior en­list­ed Coast Guard of­fi­cer ex­plained in the chat group that he had in­formed the mem­ber­ship dur­ing three mess meet­ings that the best way to reg­is­ter “our en­ti­ty with the bank was a friend­ly so­ci­ety be­cause of the tremen­dous ben­e­fits.”

He said, “The wrong in what I did, is dis­plac­ing mess funds from the main ac­count in­to an ex­ter­nal fa­cil­i­ty with­out the ex­press per­mis­sion of mess mem­bers by way of a vote.”

The se­nior en­list­ed Coast Guard of­fi­cer added, “In an ef­fort to com­plete reg­is­tra­tion as a friend­ly so­ci­ety I mis­rep­re­sent­ed the truth to the act­ing Com­mand FCPO to stall the au­dit so I could have all the funds ($375,000) in a sep­a­rate reg­is­tered ac­count re­turned be­fore the au­dit so it could show the ac­cu­rate fig­ures and rate of de­posit to sat­is­fy all au­dit­ing cri­te­ria.”

The se­nior en­list­ed Coast Guard of­fi­cer had giv­en as­sur­ances to put back the mon­ey by mid-Oc­to­ber, but in­sid­ers say to date no more has been put back in­to the ac­count.

Se­nior Coast Guard sources in­formed GM late last week that the Fraud Squad of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice were now en­gaged in re­la­tion to the miss­ing mon­ey, as al­lud­ed to by the TTCG in their press re­lease yes­ter­day.