A Web of Deceit

How Fijian Authorities busted one of Fiji’s biggest financial crimes

by Dionisia Tabureguci

Swindled! Turtle Island Fiji owner Richard 

Evanson lost close to F$1m to corrupt workers. 

PHOTO: luxurytravelmagazine.com

To listen to Fijian authorities relate how they unravelled the web of deceit that became one of Fiji’s biggest—if not the biggest—money laundering cases in recent times is almost like watching a crime movie.

For a moment, you wouldn’t believe this was happening in Fiji. 

It’s the story about how Turtle Island Fiji, owned by American entrepreneur Richard Evanson and dubbed as one of the world’s most private and exclusive eco-cultural island resorts, fell victim to corrupt workers.

The conspiracy—played out over close to two years before formal police investigations into it began—is rooted in the use of friends and relatives and their bank accounts to siphon off close to F$1 million from the resort’s account, money used to buy a life of luxury and indulgence. When police and state prosecutors finally moved in to confiscate assets, they were only able to seize a house in Nadi, bought for over $100,000 cash, and six vehicles.

At today’s market value, these assets are worth around $200,000, said state prosecutor Nancy Tikoisuva. 

The rest—over $700,000—remains unaccounted for.

84 cheques

Despite the extensive network of people involved in the fraud, the prosecution was able only to rope in six, and their sinister undertakings unfolded at the Lautoka High Court like a drama from a television crime show.

When in April this year, the six accused—Anand Kumar Prasad, Reenal Praneel Chandra, Reenal Rajneil Chandra, Deo Narayan Singh, Shirley Shangeeta Chand and Atishma Kirti Singh—were sentenced, they had already robbed SPOR Fiji Ltd, which trades as Turtle Island, of $936, 957. Of that, $840,000 were stolen through 84 cheques forged by the 1st accused, Anand Kumar Prasad.

Playing a leading role too in the deception was Prasad’s sister, 5th accused Shirley Sangeeta Prasad, a prime banker at one of the big commercial banks. Court documents relating to the sentencing of the six accused revealed that Shirley Sangeeta, being a prime banker, knew Evanson well and when Evanson found himself without an accountant in May 2006, he turned to her for a personal recommendation.

She recommended her brother, the 1st accused who has had, according to court documents, eight previous convictions for forgery, larceny and obtaining money on forged documents and had served time in prison for them. Evanson, who was the state’s key witness in this trial, told the court that he trusted the 5th accused because she had given him good banking service over the years.

“Mr Evanson says that he seemed to be performing his duties well but came to know at a later stage that from very early on in his employment, he was forging documents and cheques.” Evanson’s subsequent audit showed that Kumar “had forged a total of 84 cheques amounting to a sum of $840,000”.

Betrayal

“On 46 of those cheques, he wrote his own name as payee and on others, he wrote names of family members and friends. Because Mr Evanson trusted his staff so much, he never scrutinised cheques less than $10,000. In that way, the 1st accused was able to write so many cheques for slightly less than $10,000, forge Evanson’s signature and bank them under two different accounts in his name and into the accounts of his friends, the 2nd and 3rd accused (brothers Renal Praneel Chandra and Reenal Rajneil Chandra). In some instances, the 1st accused would change the name of the payee on a cheque for a sum over $10,000, sometimes even adding figures to the sum written, then forge the initials of Evanson near the alteration.

“Many of these cheques were made payable to the 4th accused’s (Deo Narayan) company ‘Shahill and Shohill Grocery and Machinery Repairs Ltd’. The 4th accused did piecemeal vehicle repair. Throughout this  time, the 5th accused (Shirley Sangeeta), the 1st accused’s sister, worked in the bank, with every capability of facilitating the processing of the cheques, although there is no evidence that she did that.

Picturesque Turtle Island.     PHOTO: turtlefiji.com

“There was evidence, however, that she was involved personally in uplifting stop orders on cheques that Mr Evanson’s company SPOR Fiji Ltd, had earlier stopped and there was no authority for her to do that. In addition to that, she was instrumental in processing a forged fax that was sent to the bank to remit the sum of $36,000 to Shahill and Shohill. She happened to be ‘on the spot’ when the fax arrived and made sure it was actioned without delay. As soon as it was processed and after the 5th accused made a phone call, the monies were uplifted.”

Jailtime

Justice Paul Madigan sentenced the 1st accused Anand Kumar Prasad, “the main player in this conspiracy”, to six years with a minimum term of five years while his sister, who, “from the very beginning betrayed the trust of her bank employer and one of its biggest clients by recommending her brother to Mr Evanson as a suitable person to be the Turtle Island accountant” was sentenced to four and a half years with a minimum term of three years.  The second and third accused, who are brothers and friends of the 1st accused, each got two years with a minimum term of 18 months for facilitating the fraud by providing their bank accounts for the 1st accused to use to deposit the forged cheques."  The fourth accused was sentenced for four years with a minimum term of three years for playing "a rather major role in this conspiracy by providing his business bank account for the  1st accused to use."

“A lot of the cheques that were altered were made payable to ‘Shahill and Shohill Grocery and Machinery Repairs Ltd’, which was the account the fourth accused (Deo Narayan) and his wife, the 6th accused (Atishma Kirti Singh) used in the running of a small shop and repair yard they had in Sigatoka,” Justice Madigan said in his ruling.

“The 4th accused had cheques deposited into 2 personal accounts in addition. He was also, by his company account, the recipient of funds transferred by way of a forged fax sent to the 5th accused’s bank. He later was ‘rewarded’ with a gift of a vehicle.”

His wife, the 6th accused, was delievered a two-year sentence suspended for two years because of her “relatively minor role in the conspiracy.”

Model case

All those facts came before Fiji’s court system because of the efficient cooperation at ground level, which led first to the detection of the crime through the financial system, its investigation by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and the Fiji Police, and then the successful prosecution by state prosecutors. The case was highlighted at the FIU’s 3rd Anti-Money Laundering conference held in Suva last month, as a demonstration of how such collaboration among the relevant agencies would continue to ensure that Fiji’s financial system is not used by criminals to hide their so-called ‘dirty money’, or their gains from illegal activities.

Razim Buksh: Fiji FIU gathered intelligence 

within 24 hours.   PHOTO: Dionisia Tabureguci

“This is the biggest money laundering case in the history of Fiji and the biggest that we’ve handled which was very successful and this is due to the team work of all the agencies involved, including the commercial banks who gave us tremendous support in terms of providing the necessary information to the FIU,” Razim Buksh, head of Fiji’s FIU told Fiji Business.

“It is significant for Fiji because it talks about all aspects of the money laundering system, in particular the reporting of Suspicious Transactions Reports (STRs) under the Financial Transactions Reporting Act; the ability and capacity of the FIU to quickly develop intelligence and quickly share this information with the law enforcement agency. “The case also talks about the ability of the fraud investigators within the police force. Because of the complexities involved in the case, they must be capable enough to analyse huge volumes of information and financial data.

“It also tested the ability of the Director of Public Prosecution, its entire team, on whether they could test new grounds, whether they were able to carry out the civil forfeiture provisions under the law and I think when you look at the case in totality, you can comfortably say that this is a very positive outcome and a very significant achievement for Fiji,” Buksh added.

How they were caught

In this case, loosely referred to as the “Turtle Island case”, the perpetrators made sure the forged cheques were mostly for amounts less than $10,000 to avoid detection not just by Evanson but also by the FIU, as all financial transactions in Fiji of $10,000 or more must be reported to the FIU. The twist of irony was that one of their transactions emerged nevertheless in FIU’s radar as an STR, which then led to the busting of the scheme.

In just 24 hours from this first STR, the FIU, empowered under the Financial Transactions Reporting Act to get personal bank account details and transaction records, had gathered enough information to confirm the criminal nature of the case. 

“It was reported as an STR and our analysis of the transaction and the bank account details found that these transactions were below the reportable threshold. So it was during the course of our analysis and the request for further information and our intelligence development process that we found that this whole scheme was based on under $10,000 transactions,” said Buksh. “And you would have seen that one of the persons charged was a bank officer and she knew of the reportable threshold and therefore it was a deliberate attempt by the perpetrators to do those transactions so that they are not within the FIU’s radar. But they were picked because we went back to the commercial banks and we found that these were transactions conducted at not just one bank but at many other commercial banks and a large percentage of these transactions were $9.800, $9,300…all below $10,000 which is the reportable threshold under the FTR Act,” Buksh added.

Little surprise that the case also went on to win international recognition from the Egmont Group of FIUs of the World, an organization of FIUs from 127 countries including Fiji, who classed it as one of the top three cases of Money Laundering in the world.

Dirty Money

FIU gathered intelligence in a matter of 24 hours. Police investigation was to take a course of almost a year before the thieves were arrested and charged, putting to test the quality of police investigation as well as the skills of state prosecutors to handle such a complex case. For the state prosecutors, this was a landmark case because it involved the largest civil forfeiture ever done in Fiji, where a lot of property has been forfeited to the state.

Their ability to execute this civil forfeiture was indicative of the skills these lawyers are now equipped with, which means that offenders, when they get out of prison, will not be able to enjoy money or assets that they’ve stolen.

“The value right now if we sell those properties would be over $200,000,” DPP lawyer and prosecutor in the case Nancy Tikoisuva told Fiji Business.

“We were able to seize six vehicles and one house. One of these vehicles was transferred to the main culprit’s mother (the 1st accused’s mother) and we were able to show that the mother didn’t have the capacity to have paid for this car in cash because she was just staying home. At the same time, the house was being bought in her name for cash as well. “We were able to establish that she couldn’t have got this money, that the money had to come from her son and we were able to establish from the documents and through witness’ statements that it was him who did the purchasing even though it was in his mother’s name,” Tikoisuva said.

Forged Cheques...a picture of a forged cheque in the Turtle Island case.
PHOTO:  FIU presentation at 2011 Anti-Money Laundering
Workshop in Suva, Fiji.

All properties seized, said Tikoisuva, will have to be sold off and the money from that sale go into the Forfeited Assets Fund, which was established under the Proceeds of Crime Act. 

Turtle Island did not lay any claim during the civil proceedings while a claim filed by one of the perpetrators, who claimed that legitimate money was spent by him on one of the cars, was quashed by the court.

Liquidation would see the Forfeited Assets Fund with some $200,000, which will be used for law enforcement work. While the rest, some $700,000, remain untraceable, this case may also be remembered as one of the very first to test the provisions for civil forfeiture, which was only introduced in Fiji in 2005 as an amendment to the Proceeds of Crime Act 1997.

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This article was published as the cover story of the Fiji Business section of the monthly Islands Business Magazine as: "A Web of Deceit". It appeared on pages 1-5 of Fiji Business December 2011 edition.