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Wednesday, May 7, 2025

PM all but cleared in Miami bank account scandal

by

Chester Sambrano
2008 days ago
20191107
Supt. (Ag.) Wendell Lucas of the TTPS Financial Investigations Branch, right, speaks during a news conference at the Police Administration Building yesterday. At left is Police Commissioner Gary Griffith.

Supt. (Ag.) Wendell Lucas of the TTPS Financial Investigations Branch, right, speaks during a news conference at the Police Administration Building yesterday. At left is Police Commissioner Gary Griffith.

ANISTO ALVES

CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

chester.sam­bra­no@cnc3.co.tt

Pre­lim­i­nary find­ings by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) have all but cleared Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley of any wrong­do­ing in re­la­tion to al­le­ga­tions of fi­nan­cial im­pro­pri­ety.

Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the bud­get de­bate on Oc­to­ber 9, 2018, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said he vis­it­ed bank­ing in­sti­tu­tions in Mi­a­mi where he re­tained emails and doc­u­ments which re­vealed Row­ley re­ceived funds from the A&V Drilling fake oil scan­dal.

He called out bank­ing ac­count num­bers and named Dr Row­ley and for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) can­di­date for Siparia, Vidya De­ok­iesingh.

At yes­ter­day’s week­ly po­lice me­dia brief­ing, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith said when the mat­ter was brought to its at­ten­tion the TTPS launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

He said, “the ini­tial pre­lim­i­nary find­ings have stat­ed that in re­gards to the al­le­ga­tion made by that Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment on the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter, the pre­lim­i­nary find­ings re­vealed there was no nexus be­tween the sub­ject and the ac­count num­ber iden­ti­fied in that case sum­ma­ry based on the ac­count.”

He went on to say that “there was no iden­ti­fied trans­ac­tion be­tween the sub­ject and the oth­er sub­jects iden­ti­fied.”

Head of the TTPS Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Branch Supt (Ag) Wen­dell Lu­cas who was al­so in at­ten­dance said the mat­ter is still on­go­ing and has not been “closed.”

He said the po­lice are still work­ing with the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit (FIU) and for­eign coun­ter­parts to bring fi­nal­i­ty to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

He said this should be done in short or­der.

In re­sponse to the TTPS’s rev­e­la­tion Dr Mooni­lal told Guardian Me­dia that “the TTPS is now ini­ti­at­ing con­tact with me to con­tin­ue an in­quiry, the CoP in­di­cat­ed that there was a “pre­lim­i­nary” find­ing but al­so stat­ed that in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing. I am meet­ing with the TTPS next week on this mat­ter. I leant that the of­fi­cer who start­ed the in­ves­ti­ga­tion from the Fraud Squad was sub­se­quent­ly sus­pend­ed from du­ty...not sure if it was re­lat­ed to this mat­ter. That of­fi­cer had in­di­cat­ed that at­tempts to con­tact me were un­fruit­ful. I al­so in­di­cat­ed that I can’t re­call the TTPS ap­proach­ing me on this mat­ter. But I am pre­pared to as­sist as best I could.”

A day af­ter the al­le­ga­tions were made, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley made a state­ment in the Par­lia­ment where he re­fut­ed Mooni­lal’s claims.

“I state here, as I have done al­ready else­where, that there is ab­solute­ly no truth to what the mem­ber for Oropouche East has stat­ed and/or im­put­ed. I have no bank ac­count in Mi­a­mi, USA; I was not par­ty to any bank­ing trans­ac­tion with Mr De­ok­iesingh, For­mu­la One Trad­ing or any per­son or per­sons with re­spect to any bank in Flori­da, the Unit­ed States, or any bank in the world for that mat­ter Madame Speak­er,” he said.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so ini­ti­at­ed le­gal ac­tion against Mooni­lal.


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