PPP vows to restructure “tainted” SOCU

Oct 05, 2019 News

The police Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) will be restructured if the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) gets back into power.
Speaking on Wednesday during “The Political Show” on Kaieteur Radio, 99.1 and 99.5 FM, former Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, who himself is before the courts charged with theft of law books that belong to the state but which he claimed were gifted to him as part of his service package, was critical of the current structure.

Attorney-at-law Anil Nandlall

Nandlall, while the Attorney General under the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), had together with the then Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, established SOCU.
It was the same SOCU that charged him for the law books.
“It was established because we were required under the AML-CFT (anti-money laundering) regime to establish a specific organ of enforcement to aid the financial intelligence unit as they do the financial investigations and collect evidence,” Nandlall explained.
He was being questioned about his thoughts on SOCU and the PPP’s repeated unhappiness how that unit has been operating.
Explaining how it worked, Nandlall said that the job of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) is to pass evidence to the SOCU, which is then supposed to action it by investigating and liaise with the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) to formulate the charges.

SOCU will be restructured if the PPP return to power, former Attorney General Anil Nandlall says.

The former AG said that he largely recruited the top staff members himself.
Among the staffers were detectives with years of service between them. They were the first batch of people recruited.
The second batch would have been accountants with financial analysts and computer experts also targeted.
“SOCU is supposed to be a modern, sophisticated unit that was supposed to be paid a higher salary than the police. It was located differently. All this reduced to nothing.”
According to Nandlall, a practising attorney-at-law, Government made SOCU answerable to the Ministry of the Presidency.
“So right there you have political contamination.”
In fact, the financing came through the Ministry of the Presidency with the PPP/C objecting.
The Opposition official said that the contamination continued with the hiring of special prosecutors who had linkage to government officials through their law firms.
According to Nandlall, the record will show that SOCU did little money laundering investigations and laid very little charges. No drug dealer of repute was charge too.
“Who did they charge for money laundering? They have charged me.”
Nandlall listed several PPP/C officials whom SOCU concentrated on included its Presidential Candidate, Irfaan Ali, and parliamentarians, Nigel Dharamlall and Dharamkumar Seeraj.
“SOCU has lost its focus completely.”
He pointed out that SOCU itself was the subject of a fraud investigation- an alarming rarity for an organisation of the calibre of SOCU.
He said that he has evidence of even a former Deputy Head of SOCU submitting forged qualifications.
“I have my proof.”
That is the skullduggery that is going on at SOCU, Nandall stressed.
“How could that unit investigate the people of the country?”