Part 2 : Randolph Burroughs: Exposes foreign currency racket, informs US on Chadee

Randolph Burroughs  displays seized firearms

This is just the second in the four-part series, the voice of Randolph Burroughs, the legendary Police Commissioner (1978-1984), explains, in his words, how the Ministry of Finance (perhaps unwittingly) the  banks along with  parts of the local business sector profited from the drug trade and crippled  his  effectiveness  and by extension, the TT Police Service.

The excerpt is from his unpublished biography which chronicles, in detail, how he was framed to be removed from office and which also, through the cases he worked and solved as a detective, chronicles TT’s crime history.

Blows the whistle on Foreign Currency Racket:

     ...  Money Laundering Takes Root in T&T

"In May 1983, I headed a party of police officers which raided the home of Dole Chadee (NanKissoon Boodram) and we found a quantity of illicit drugs.

More importantly, we came across a letter sent to him by a Colombian national who was then known as a top man involved in cocaine trafficking into the USA.

Drug Kingpin Dole Chadee

He was asking Chadee, (who was convicted for murder and executed by hanging in June 1999) to join forces with his operation.

I had that letter and other information sent to the Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Port of Spain, Mr A. Don Bramante.

The Embassy subsequently contacted us and informed that the Colombian national was arrested on board a vessel off the Florida Coast in May 1978.

The vessel was found to be transporting some 112 tons of marijuana.

The Embassy also disclosed that the man was charged with the offence but jumped bail and returned to Colombia.

It was around that time that the foreign currency racket took root in the country.

I had always asserted that since we did not plant crops and our currency is not accepted in the producing countries, that local financial institutions were involved in the best money making rackets in town.

And I had also predicted that public officials—including politicians, judicial officers and other influential persons in society- would become tarnished.

To me, it was crystal clear that some of them were already involved.

By the late 1970’s I had become painfully aware that a number of top local businessmen, who had been denied licences to carry firearms, had taken to buying illegal weapons for their protection.

So it seemed only natural that several raids were carried out on such persons residing in the posh Goodwood Park area..an activity that was tantamount to digging my own grave as it turned out.

Since my retirement, I had time to reflect on how these VIPs could have helped to create my downfall.

Some of them had previously been involved in smuggling activities.

I am satisfied —  and I will go down saying so — that some of these people became involved in cocaine trafficking because of the huge profit margins it offered.

They already had contacts established in high places through which they could easily secure foreign exchange.

Theirs was a white-collar crime that capitalized on obtaining foreign currency from financial institutions, ostensibly to make legal purchases, which was used instead of buy cocaine.

The whole system was legalized in the 1981 National Budget  when a new method of obtaining currency from the Central Bank, instead created loopholes for fraudulently getting it,

This one is still referred to as the EC-O Racket.

Importers were required to obtain prior approval of EC-O Forms seeking the release of foreign exchange to purchase imported merchandise.

They would apply for the money after orders had been placed and the goods were shipped from the country of origin.

A new dimension was brought into the picture, however.

It was made mandatory for the Ministry of  Industry, Trade and Commerce to approve the forms before they reached the Central Bank.

After this measure was introduced the cocaine trade really thrived.

Many businessmen who had easy access to foreign exchange would sell it back to drug dealers at twice the rate they would pay for it.

Many such traders ended up with hefty profits, and so they started setting up dummy companies to hide their tracks.

The tentacles of money laundering were only just starting to get hold of the financial system.

Inflated invoices were able to pass easily.

Once you had the approval of the Trade Ministry, “business fix” as Trinidadians like to say.

Even in instances where huge amounts were deposited into bank accounts, bank managers did not ask questions.

Once they got the business, they were happy.

Some racketeers possessed copies of official Central Bank stamps from the Trade Ministry, and this gave them even easier access to the US dollars that the cocaine suppliers craved.

 But it is not to say that the politicians were blissfully unaware of the networking that was creeping into the legitimate financial system.

And, strangely, I was to learn the extent of the currency racket during an afternoon meeting called at the office of the then Prime Minister, Dr Eric Williams and attended by Melvyn De Souza (then Minister of Finance) and  Victor Bruce., the Central Bank Governor from 1969-1984.

The Late Victor Bruce

The meeting was called by Dr Williams following the discovery that a local businessman, in the Syrian Community, had obtained large sums of US dollars on the pretext that it was to pay for a shipment of horse medicine.

The amount of money requested did not correspond with the needs of the local horse racing industry, however, and the government was suspicious that fraud was used.

As a result of the meeting, I detailed Superintendent Hugh Roach of the Fraud Squad to serve as Special Investigator in this and other cases with respect to major transactions involving financial institutions.

He was to report directly to me, as Commissioner and to Bruce, the Central Bank Governor.

In a bid to get to the bottom of what turned out to be an even bigger racket than we had estimated, a number of top businessmen, including the late motorcar magnate, Bolan Amar, were charged under the Exchange Control Act for taking money out of the country.

For, in addition to supplying Roach with a team of detectives to systematically investigate the case of fraud, the Customs Department was also assigned to cover the Piarco International Airport exit.

They intercepted and searched a lot of passengers during that time, and many citizens arrested for such transgressions were forced to answer to the courts.

But it was not all plain sailing for the investigators..especially Roach.

He and his family fell victim to a spate of terrorist tactics and telephone threats that were clearly intended to scare him off.

First, his guard dogs at the government quarters he occupied near the Police Mounted Branch Headquarters on Long Circular Road, St James, was poisoned by persons unknown.

And later, a portion of the home was firebombed. However, this did not dissuade him from pressing on relentlessly.

In fact, he was still on the case when I proceeded on accumulated vacation leave in 1983..more than two years after the investigation had been initiated by Dr Williams, shortly before he died.

Up until then cocaine users and importers had remained a select group.

Many of those who became involved did so because of the easy access to foreign exchange which the EC-O system provided, and the big profits that beckoned.

It seemed to me at the time that Central Bank Governor Victor Bruce was turning a blind eye to this.

In fact, on one occasion, I remember him ordering us to return some foreign exchange we had seized from the Woodbrook home of a well known Syrian businesswoman.

So, by the time he died, years later, under strange circumstances in far-off Sierra Leone, it was being alleged in many quarters that he had protected many Syrian and French Creole businessmen who were involved in the racketeering and drug trafficking—some of them were reported to be “Lodge” members like himself.

Although the police tried to crack the high society network of white collar crime we were dealing with, those involved continued to flourish because of the protection they got from the political, judicial and financial authorities. Although the initial investigation was botched I was somewhat surprised when, shortly after I left for Miami in late 1983, taking my wife, Sheila, for Medical treatment, the new police administration suddenly transferred Roach out of the CID and into the uniformed section of the Police Service.

He subsequently made several complaints about the way he was treated, believing it to be a clear case of victimization.

As a result, he became very disenchanted with the Police Service and later retired.

Regrettably, the career of a first-class police officer had ended on a sour note so that corruption could continue."
The end.

Coming Up Part 3: Politicians press the panic button

The above was first published on December 5th 2005, in a special edition of the TT Mirror, with permission from his son Edison Burroughs,.

 This is being republished against the backdrop of Gary Griffith’s appointment as top cop and his threats to become what can only be the 21st-century version of the late Randolph Burroughs TC.

 At the age of 66 years, Burroughs died in October 1996, after the entire biography, (which I worked on with the late Mirror Editor Keith Shepherd) was completed before he passed on.