Trinidad: Senior cop promoted then sent on leave

(Trinidad Guardian) The for­mer head of the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) To­taram Dook­ie, who was re­cent­ly pro­mot­ed to the rank As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, was sent on leave just over a week ago. This has been con­firmed by the TTPS hi­er­ar­chy.

Dook­ie, who rose through the ranks as head of the Fraud Squad then the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau, was pro­mot­ed dur­ing the re­cent re­struc­tur­ing of TTPS ranks and was put in charge of all of south and cen­tral op­er­a­tions. How­ev­er, weeks lat­er—around De­cem­ber 28—he was sent on sev­er­al months’ leave.

Dook­ie hasn’t re­spond­ed to ques­tions on the mat­ter but sources close to him said he had been sent on leave which he had ac­cu­mu­lat­ed, ap­prox­i­mate­ly six months, and is ex­pect­ed back at work around June. No rea­son was giv­en for send­ing him on leave, of­fi­cials said.

He is one of sev­er­al po­lice of­fi­cers who were re­cent­ly sent on leave since they have “a lot of leave in­side” ac­cu­mu­lat­ed, which they had to take.

Dook­ie has in­ves­ti­gat­ed var­i­ous high pro­file fraud cas­es and was the squad’s ex­pert spokesman over the last few years on the ris­ing in­ci­dence of deb­it card skim­ming, unau­tho­rised ABM card use, huge surges in phish­ing, re­al es­tate fraud, mon­ey laun­der­ing and var­i­ous type of cy­ber­crimes.

It was Dook­ie who de­tect­ed, since 2014, a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in the amount of coun­ter­feit cur­ren­cy cir­cu­lat­ing in the lo­cal bank­ing sys­tem and in 2016 had been cred­it­ed for ma­jor suc­cess­es by the Fraud Square.

He was at the helm of the 2016 ar­rests of four se­nior of­fi­cials of the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and a con­trac­tor for al­leged­ly con­spir­ing to de­fraud the state in the award­ing of state con­tracts. He al­so led in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to rape and sex­u­al mis­con­duct and al­leged mis­be­hav­iour by po­lice of­fi­cers, as well as the case of a man ac­cused of threat­en­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s fam­i­ly in 2017.

His most re­cent high pro­file case was when for­mer PNM Min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald was charged last Au­gust along with her com­mon-law part­ner Michael Carew, Vic­tor Mc Eachrane, Wayne An­tho­ny and Edgar Zephrine for al­leged cor­rup­tion

Dook­ie was ap­point­ed head of the PSB last year and had been in that post for a short time when Mc­Don­ald and the four oth­ers were ar­rest­ed and charged with con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud the Gov­ern­ment, mon­ey laun­der­ing and al­leged cor­rup­tion.

Yes­ter­day sources Guardian Me­dia any mat­ters which Dook­ie was han­dling will be passed to oth­er of­fi­cers to car­ry on and his leave wouldn’t af­fect any is­sues. Same ap­plies to oth­er of­fi­cers on leave.

Po­lice of­fi­cials said a ma­jor in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched con­cern­ing an af­fi­davit by late Co­corite res­i­dent Ce­cil Skeete who in No­vem­ber ac­cused Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith of abus­ing him at a po­lice sta­tion. Grif­fith de­nied this and Skeete, in an af­fi­davit lat­er de­nied a news­pa­per re­port on the in­ci­dent.

Skeete was killed on De­cem­ber 29. In his af­fi­davit, he claimed that cer­tain po­lice of­fi­cers and mem­bers of the me­dia were on a “com­mit­tee” try­ing to un­der­mine Grif­fith and bring him down. Two se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials are head­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the af­fi­davit and are look­ing in­to al­le­ga­tions that a se­nior of­fi­cer had or­ches­trat­ed the al­leged “com­mit­tee”.

The probe en­com­pass­es some of­fi­cers of the West­ern Di­vi­sion as well as some PSB of­fi­cers.

Po­lice are look­ing at pos­si­ble per­sons of in­ter­est who can as­sist in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.