A se­nior bank em­ploy­ee and a for­mer So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­istry In­spec­tor and three oth­ers are to ap­pear be­fore a Port of Spain Mag­is­trate on Tues­day, all joint­ly charged with Con­spir­a­cy to De­fraud the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (GORTT) of sums to­talling $900,000.

Gashyia Si­wa­ju, 42, of Ed­in­burgh 500, a for­mer In­spec­tor II em­ployed with the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, was charged with Con­spir­a­cy to De­fraud the GORTT, 32 counts of Fraud­u­lent­ly Caus­ing the Mak­ing of a Valu­able Se­cu­ri­ty and 20 Counts of Mon­ey Laun­der­ing by Re­ceiv­ing (kick­backs).

Kelon Williams, 34, of Pi­ar­co, an Op­er­a­tions Man­ag­er with a com­mer­cial bank, was charged with Con­spir­a­cy to De­fraud the GORT.

Si­wa­ju and Williams were grant­ed bail in the sums of $500,000 and $300,000 re­spec­tive­ly, by Jus­tice of the Peace Young on Mon­day.

The three oth­er ac­cused are:

Josephine James, 71, a do­mes­tic work­er, of Pe­tit Val­ley, who was charged with Con­spir­a­cy to De­fraud the GORTT, 42 counts of Mon­ey Laun­der­ing by Dis­pos­ing and two counts of Mon­ey Laun­der­ing by re­ceiv­ing Ter­ry-Ann James, 43, a mes­sen­ger em­ployed in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, of Pe­tit Val­ley, who was charged with Con­spir­a­cy to De­fraud the GORTT, 42 counts of Mon­ey Laun­der­ing by Dis­pos­ing and two counts of Mon­ey Laun­der­ing by Re­ceiv­ing, and Nor­man St. Clair, 43, a handy­man em­ployed with the HDC, of Laven­tille, who was charged with Con­spir­a­cy to De­fraud the GORTT and 22 counts of mon­ey laun­der­ing by re­ceiv­ing.

The charges arise from a re­port made to the Fraud Squad, in Jan­u­ary 2020, by se­nior of­fi­cers at the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, who de­tect­ed dis­crep­an­cies in pay­ments be­ing made to a par­tic­u­lar re­tire­ment home, dur­ing the pe­ri­od Sep­tem­ber 2015 to Jan­u­ary 2020.