(Trinidad Guardian) Three Chinese businessmen have been freed of money laundering charges due to the failure of the police to properly investigate the source of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash they were found in possession of.
Yaun Fu Wu, Du Feng Wu and Yanbin Huang Liam were charged under the Proceeds of Crime Act, after police raided their residence at Allan Street in Diego Martin in October 2015 and found $482,337, US$7,724 and 44,012 Venezuelan Bolivars.
On Monday, Chief Magistrate Maria Busby-Earle-Caddle dismissed the charges against the trio after upholding a no-case submission from their attorneys, Mario Merritt and Karunaa Bisramsingh.
In the application, the trio’s attorneys claimed that although investigators alleged they obtained the cash by engaging in illegal gambling, they did not adduce any evidence linking them to such activity.
They claimed that when their clients were arrested, they told investigators that they had established businesses in Venezuela and brought the cash from there to open other businesses in T&T.
While being cross-examined by Merritt, investigators admitted that they did not thoroughly investigate the trio’s claims.
Merritt also pointed out that while investigators presented witness statements from bar owners, who claimed that they were approached by Chinese nationals to place unlicensed roulette machines in their establishments, none of them identified the trio. In upholding the no-case submission, Busby-Earle-Caddle ruled that the police did not do a proper investigation of the matter.
The trio’s lawyers will now have to apply for the seized cash to be returned to their clients.
