Fifteen persons including current and former Customs and Trade Administration employees and two brokers, who were charged in April over a multi-million dollar ‘Polar beer’ fraud at Customs, were on Thursday told by Acting Chief Magistrate Melissa Robertson that the cases against them would remain indictable.

She said also that Preliminary Inquiries (PIs) into those matters would commence on their next court date, which was subsequently set for November 10.

Special Prosecutor Bernard De Santos had petitioned the court to have the Administration of Justice Act (AJA) applied to the charges of forgery and conspiracy to commit a felony facing the accused. This would have allowed the defendants to plead to the charges since they would then be summary charges.

However, attorneys-at-law Vic Puran, Nigel Hughes, Glenn Hanoman, Leslie Sobers, Chandrawattie Persaud and Tanya Warren who represented the accused requested that their clients be tried indictably.

The magistrate in her ruling on Thursday stated that she had taken into consideration the arguments raised by the prosecutor and the defence attorneys, adding that from advice received although a matter can be dealt with summarily “it doesn’t have to be.”

She said a serious case of this nature should be dealt with by a “superior” court. Magistrate Robertson went on to say that “the offences are of serious nature” and based on this it would be “expedient or advantageous to deal with them indictably at this stage.”

The magistrate then ordered that the cases be transferred to Court Three for November 10 when the PIs are expected to commence.

It was recently reported that 14 individuals were charged, but Ann Noel, now an ex-employee of Customs, was later arrested and has been charged together with Rajendra Rajcoomar, who was a broker, with conspiracy to commit a felony.

Those charged are Rajcoomar, 42, of 73 B Non Pareil, East Coast Demerara (ECD) and another broker Samantha Sam, 30, of 32 East La Penitence; Michelle Matthias, 31, of 538 Aubrey Barker Road, South Ruimveldt; Rhonda Glad, 29, of 7 East La Penitence; Karen Bobb-Semple, 25, of 112 Melanie Damishana, ECD; Simone Herod, 41, of 226 BB Eccles, East Bank Demerara; Roopnarine Ramkishan 48, of 118 Patentia, West Bank Demerara; Ausya Greenidge, 35, of 531 Section A, South Sophia; Joshoda Mohamed, 49, of 68 West Half D’Andrade Street, Newtown Kitty; Anthony Gildharie, 32, of 7 Field 7 South Cummings Lodge; Sadish Petamber, 27, of 78 Da Silva Street, Newtown Kitty; Vicky Sooknandan, 31, of 54 Middle Road, La Penitence, Rabindra Ramsaran, and 31-year-old Satish Basdeo of 25 Crane Village, West Coast Demerara.

A total of 72 individual and joint charges, ranging from fraud and forgery and conspiracy to commit a felony, were levelled against those accused and their lawyers had questioned why the head of Fidelity Investments Limited was not among them.

The accused were all granted bail in varying amounts since some are facing more charges than others.