PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad--Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams has ordered an investigation into the unauthorised release of a businesswoman who had been in prison awaiting trial on more than 150 fraud charges. Vicky Boodram apparently had the help of a cop – who is now also missing – getting out of jail.
She walked out of the Golden Grove Prison in Arouca, around 5:15pm on Monday, but it was not until Tuesday that the Ministry of National Security disclosed in a statement that she had escaped from the jail and was believed to be trying to get out of the country. All points of entry including ports and the airports were being closely monitored by law enforcement as a result.
The statement gave no details about when and how the 35-year-old Boodram was able to get out of the prison.
But police and prison sources have told local media outlets that two officers – a man and a women – had gone to the women’s section of the Golden Grove Prison and requested that Boodram accompany them to “night court” – that does not exist. Prison authorities allowed her to leave.
The Trinidad Guardian reported that after initially collecting Boodram, the male police officer had returned to the station where he dropped off his female colleague and left with Boodram, and neither he nor the prisoner has been seen since.
The newspaper said the policewoman was being questioned by officers of the Professional Standards Bureau up to Tuesday evening, but also quoted Assistant Commissioner of Police McDonald Jacob as saying that she had been acting on the advice of her male colleague when she had gone to the prison and had only been made aware of what had transpired when she had arrived at work Tuesday morning.
Boodram had been on remand since March last year after being denied bail on 39 fraud charges. Including those charges, she has a total 175 fraud matters before the court dating back to 2012.
Boodram, who operated a travel agency with her now estranged husband Ravi Arjoonsingh, allegedly defrauded several people, taking money from them for cruises that never happened.
Her charges include: demanding property by virtue of a forged instrument; larceny, “uttering” a forged document; attempting to obtain property by false pretences, money laundering; and obtaining “crediting” by fraud. ~ Caribbean360 ~
