A Port-of-Spain busi­ness­woman has been charged with two counts of fraud fol­low­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Fraud Squad.

A state­ment from the TTPS is­sued yes­ter­day stat­ed that the 30-year-old busi­ness­woman al­leged­ly pur­chased a quan­ti­ty of al­co­holic and non-al­co­holic bev­er­ages val­ued at $122,262 from a sup­pli­er, for which she is­sued two cheques—one for $51,991 and an­oth­er for $70,271.

The cheques were ac­cept­ed as pay­ment; how­ev­er, up­on de­posit, both were re­turned dis­hon­oured.

Po­lice said at­tempts to re­cov­er the out­stand­ing sum were un­suc­cess­ful, prompt­ing the sup­pli­er to make a for­mal re­port. W/Cpl Adams was as­signed to in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter, and with the as­sis­tance of the Al­pha Team, the sus­pect was ar­rest­ed on April 3, at a lo­ca­tion on Prince Street, Port-of-Spain. A search of the premis­es was con­duct­ed, dur­ing which sev­er­al items were found and seized.

Fol­low­ing in­ter­views with the sus­pect and con­sul­ta­tions with Snr Supt Michael Jack­man, Supt Arnold Lutch­man, APS Bis­nath, and Le­gal Of­fi­cer Sgt Bas­sarath, in­struc­tions were giv­en to charge the sus­pect with two counts of ob­tain­ing prop­er­ty by means of dis­hon­oured cheques.

The charges were laid on April 3 and the de­fen­dant was grant­ed bail in the sum of $100,000 by a jus­tice of the peace that same day.

She is sched­uled to ap­pear be­fore a Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate on April 30. In the state­ment from the TTPS, the Fraud Squad re­mind­ed the pub­lic that is­su­ing cheques while know­ing there are in­suf­fi­cient funds in one’s ac­count to cov­er the pay­ment for goods or ser­vices is a crim­i­nal of­fence. It said of­fend­ers are li­able to im­pris­on­ment for up to five years and may be or­dered to re­pay up to ten times the val­ue of the dis­hon­oured cheque.