An­oth­er get-rich scheme in­volv­ing state and pri­vate lands, val­ued hun­dreds of mil­lions, has been un­cov­ered in Ari­ma.

Ari­ma May­or Cagney Casimire con­firmed the scheme and the val­ue of the land at Phase III Alenore Gar­dens to be more than $100 mil­lion.

Guardian Me­dia's In­ves­tiga­tive Desk found that the land in Cal­vary Hill was be­ing sold by peo­ple with no le­git­i­mate claim.

Sources, in­clud­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, alert­ed Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­tiga­tive Desk to il­le­gal re­al es­tate sales tak­ing place more than a month ago.

And af­ter three weeks of in­ves­tiga­tive work, the desk ver­i­fied the ve­rac­i­ty of the claims made.

It is be­lieved that sev­er­al peo­ple paid be­tween $250,000 to $350,000 each for lots that they were told was pri­vate prop­er­ty, rang­ing from 5,000 to 9,600 square feet in size.

The peo­ple are still con­vinced that they own le­git­i­mate pieces of prop­er­ty, with some lay­ing claim to the iden­ti­cal lots of land as one an­oth­er.

All the while, al­leged fraud­sters con­tin­ue to ad­ver­tise the re­al es­tate, re­sult­ing in un­sus­pect­ing, as­pir­ing landown­ers ex­press­ing in­ter­est in pur­chas­ing the prop­er­ty, un­aware that it is state land or un­ap­proved land that does not be­long to the sell­ers.

Lo­cat­ed be­hind D’Arceuil Lane and east of the San­ta Rosa Ro­man Catholic Ceme­tery, the lots ad­ver­tised for sale, at Phase III Alenore Gar­dens, are mul­ti­ple acres of open, most­ly un­der­de­vel­oped prop­er­ty.

Arima Mayor Cagney Casimire.

The north­ern por­tion of the ex­panse of­fers a ma­jes­tic, hill­top view of Ari­ma, with well-known land­marks such as the Ari­ma Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and the Ari­ma Velo­drome seen on the hori­zon.

Ac­cord­ing to sources, who have plant­ed in the area for more than two decades, their crops were de­stroyed by some­one lay­ing claim to the land.

They said up­on check­ing with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties–the Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, the Tu­na­puna Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, the Of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands and the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture’s Lands and Fish­eries, Sur­veys and Map­ping Di­vi­sion–they were able to con­firm that the land was state land and not pri­vate land.

So they re­sumed plant­i­ng.

Their crops were, once again, de­stroyed.

They said that one evening, they were ap­proached by the man claim­ing own­er­ship and they were shown doc­u­ments.

Chal­leng­ing the au­then­tic­i­ty of the doc­u­ments, they said they urged the man to take the mat­ter to the near­est po­lice sta­tion. They said the man re­fused.

At a sub­se­quent date, sources al­leged that a group of hired men at­tempt­ed to in­tim­i­date them.

How­ev­er, the sources, many of whom are mem­bers of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies, warned the group of young men to back down. Ac­cord­ing to the sources, they did. The sources al­leged that those re­spon­si­ble are al­so quar­ry­ing the land il­le­gal­ly.

The in­ves­tiga­tive desk saw ev­i­dence sup­port­ing the claim, with deep scars in the land, sug­gest­ing ma­te­r­i­al, main­ly red sand, was re­moved.

We al­so spoke to the rel­a­tive of some­one oc­cu­py­ing land in the area for more than a decade and he claimed that his fam­i­ly has been in­tim­i­dat­ed by the same sell­ers in an at­tempt to force them to leave the land.

At first, he said, his rel­a­tive was of­fered mon­ey to leave and walk away, but af­ter she re­fused, the sell­ers be­came more force­ful.

He called on the au­thor­i­ties to act be­fore more peo­ple are fooled in­to pur­chas­ing the prop­er­ty that be­longs to the State.

Pro­vid­ed with the con­tact in­for­ma­tion of the peo­ple sell­ing the state prop­er­ty, the In­ves­tiga­tive Desk pre­tend­ed to be in­ter­est­ed buy­ers. We con­tact­ed a re­al es­tate com­pa­ny ad­ver­tis­ing 21 lots of land for sale at Phase Three Alenore Gar­dens on Face­book and oth­er so­cial me­dia sites.

The com­pa­ny, which can­not be named for le­gal rea­sons, is not reg­is­tered un­der the com­pa­nies reg­istry of the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al’s De­part­ment.

The re­al es­tate com­pa­ny’s own­er claimed to be sell­ing the land on be­half of a busi­ness­man who pur­chased land from a bank­rupt com­pa­ny–Alenore In­vest­ments Lim­it­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to in­ves­ti­ga­tions, Alenore In­vest­ments Lim­it­ed was struck off the com­pa­nies reg­istry on June 13, 2014. There is no ev­i­dence of the de­funct com­pa­ny own­ing land in the area.

“The lots are un­ap­proved…The in­vest­ment com­pa­ny–Alenore In­vest­ment–went bank­rupt and sold off the prop­er­ties. It sold off the prop­er­ties to some in­di­vid­ual buy­ers and the bal­ance of the prop­er­ties were seized by a bank (names bank). The own­er, who I am work­ing with, ba­si­cal­ly pur­chased the rest,” the sell­er, whose name can­not be re­vealed, told us.

“What hap­pened with the lots is that he’s not de­vel­op­ing all of them. The area in the cen­tre of the de­vel­op­ment, he’s not de­vel­op­ing be­cause he’s on­ly de­vel­op­ing 50 per cent of the lots. So, that’s why he doesn’t have ap­provals.”

De­scrib­ing the prop­er­ty, the sell­er said the lots have ve­hic­u­lar ac­cess via a dirt road.

How­ev­er, he said there are a few prop­er­ties high­er up on the de­vel­op­ment that will be­come more ac­ces­si­ble af­ter the project’s road is com­plet­ed.

When Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­tiga­tive Desk vis­it­ed the site last week, there was an un­even, un­paved dirt track road filled with grav­el.

It was ev­i­dent that work on some of the lots was car­ried out.

There were scars of trac­tor buck­ets in the soil, large piles of red sand and de­mar­ca­tion sticks to map out lots.

“There are lights on the land al­ready, but there is no wa­ter. There’s no prop­er drainage…But we have three lots avail­able that will have wa­ter, lights and drainage. But he’s sell­ing those for $300,000,” the sell­er said.

“So, you want to sched­ule a view­ing date and you could check it out and I can show you the doc­u­ments that I have?”

We agreed to meet with the sell­er for a site vis­it.

How­ev­er, sub­se­quent at­tempts to meet him in per­son did not ma­te­ri­alise.

Property at Alenore Gardens that is being claimed by several people without legitimate title.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

We were told that he was not feel­ing well and that he would con­tact us af­ter he re­cov­ered. That nev­er hap­pened.

Ari­ma May­or: Be­ware, no deed or ap­provals, we will stop your de­vel­op­ment

Asked about the land grab­bing at Phase III Alenore Gar­dens, May­or Casimire con­firmed he was aware of the is­sue and that, as far as he knows, some of the land ad­ver­tised for sale be­longs to the State.

He said there are al­so peo­ple sell­ing un­ap­proved pri­vate land that legal­ly be­longs to oth­ers.

When we showed him videos and im­ages of the land be­ing of­fered for sale by the sell­er we com­mu­ni­cat­ed with, the may­or said most were not ap­proved by the cor­po­ra­tion and, there­fore, could not be legal­ly sold.

“There are 21 prop­er­ties on our map that are on cadas­tral with town and coun­try, but not from the cor­po­ra­tion,” Casimire said. The May­or said, how­ev­er, that ten of the lots de­pict­ed were owned by a Mr Robin­son who has pro­vi­sion­al ap­proval from the Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion for de­vel­op­ment.

In our dis­cus­sions with the sell­er, dur­ing our in­ves­ti­ga­tions, the sell­er claimed he was sell­ing the lots on be­half of some­one else. De­spite work al­ready be­ing car­ried out on the site, that per­son has no ap­proval for lots at Alenore Gar­dens.

“The land north is, to my un­der­stand­ing, state land and it is bound­ed very close­ly to pri­vate land. So some peo­ple even went on some pri­vate landown­ers’ prop­er­ty…They cleared a large tract of land. Oth­er peo­ple moved in and said this is our land and this and that, but they have no pa­pers for the land,” Casimire said.

“These lands up there are worth over $100 mil­lion…There’s some­thing hap­pen­ing at Alenore Gar­dens where peo­ple are mov­ing in­to the gar­dens…They were clear­ing north of Alenore Gar­dens. We stopped them last year. They had an ex­ca­va­tor and trac­tor.”

Casimire said with­in the last few weeks and months he has been re­ceiv­ing nu­mer­ous re­ports of peo­ple try­ing to sell the land.

He warned in­ter­est­ed par­ties in search of a good deal in the area to be aware.

“I’m telling peo­ple to be­ware of what you are buy­ing there. Be­ware. Be­cause when we come in and you do not have the ap­provals, and you do not have the deeds to show, we will stop your de­vel­op­ment. We have stopped sev­er­al peo­ple from de­vel­op­ing be­cause they did not have ap­provals,” the may­or said.

“A lot of peo­ple went down South for fake doc­u­ments, you know. A lot of peo­ple have fake doc­u­ments. They are sup­posed to go through a lawyer and do a search. They have no ap­provals there to sell land.”

He said the Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, un­der whose ju­ris­dic­tion the land falls, is seek­ing to cre­ate a pol­i­cy to al­low those who own land in Alenore Gar­dens to de­vel­op it.

“There are lands that are al­ready be­ing sold but were un­der­de­vel­oped by the landown­er and by the de­vel­op­er. So, we are now in a po­si­tion where­by it’s ei­ther we as­sist in terms of the de­vel­op­ment–which will cost us mil­lions of dol­lars–or we de­vel­op a pol­i­cy, where­by, we ask the landown­ers them­selves to do part of that de­vel­op­ment and we take it up from a cer­tain point,” Casimire said.

Casimire said de­vel­op­ing the land would have a con­sid­er­able, pos­i­tive eco­nom­ic im­pact in Ari­ma, lead­ing to job cre­ation and in­creased busi­ness.

“We are look­ing at ways to de­vel­op that land to try and pre­vent the land grab­bing and the il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties that are hap­pen­ing there,” he said.

View of Arima from Alenore Gardens.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

'A prospec­tive de­vel­op­er is re­quired by law to ap­ply for plan­ning per­mis­sion'

Ac­cord­ing to the Gov­ern­ment's ttcon­nect web­site, a prospec­tive de­vel­op­er is re­quired by law to ap­ply for plan­ning per­mis­sion from the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment. Plan­ning per­mis­sion is re­quired to add to or ren­o­vate any ex­ist­ing build­ings or struc­tures; to cut, clear, grade or fill land; to erect new build­ings or struc­tures; to mine; to con­struct drains or roads; to change the use of a build­ing or land, or to dis­play an ad­ver­tise­ment.

An out­line ap­proval must be ob­tained be­fore an ap­pli­cant seeks full per­mis­sion for de­vel­op­ment.

The out­line ap­proval re­quires two copies of a lo­ca­tion sketch–with plot num­ber, postal ad­dress, num­ber of near­est mile mark or light pole etc–that is ad­e­quate enough to al­low a field of­fi­cer to pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fy it; the num­bered cadas­tral sheet; and a copy of the deed or lat­est ten­an­cy re­ceipt and sur­vey plan.

Once out­line ap­proval is grant­ed, a prospec­tive de­vel­op­er must ap­ply for full plan­ning ap­proval.

Full plan­ning ap­proval re­quires four copies of a lo­ca­tion sketch; four copies of all plans and draw­ings that de­scribe the pro­posed de­vel­op­ment; and two copies of the com­plet­ed ap­pli­ca­tion form for the util­i­sa­tion of land.

Mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions then act on de­vel­op­ment ap­pli­ca­tions once the ap­pli­ca­tion is ap­proved by the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion.

There are two or three ad­di­tion­al lev­els of pro­cess­ing be­fore a mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion grants ap­proval.

The num­ber of lev­els de­pends on whether an en­gi­neer or the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer con­ducts the fi­nal as­sess­ment.

The first as­sess­ment is done by an in­spec­tor who as­sess­es ap­pli­ca­tions ap­proved by Town and Coun­try.