$222-M INSPORTS FRAUD

TheMajor Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency (MOCA) on Wednesday said it arrested and charged three men in connection with a $222-million fraud reportedly committed at the Institute of Sports (INSPORTS) between 2011 and 2017.

Other arrests, MOCA said, are to come.

Popular Chug It and French Connection party promoter Andrew Wright as well as Rudolph Barnes and Oneil Hope have been charged with various offences, including conspiracy to defraud; acquisition, use and possession of criminal property; engaging in transactions involving criminal property; and larceny as a servant, MOCA said in a news release.

“All three are alleged to have been part of a team of former employees of INSPORTS who wrote, signed, and encashed fraudulent cheques for payees who were neither employees nor contracted workers of the entity,” MOCA said.

The suspected fraud and other irregularities, MOCA said, were detected by INSPORTS in 2017 during an examination of its financial records. The matter was reported to MOCA, triggering an investigation.

“These arrests are the first set of arrests as MOCA currently has warrants out for several other individuals,” the law enforcement agency’s Director of Communication Major Basil Jarrett said.

He praised MOCA’s partners, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Financial Investigations Division (FID), and Tax Administration Jamaica for the critical role they have played in the investigation thus far.

“These types of investigations are complex undertakings requiring thoroughness and collaboration,” Jarrett said, “and so it took a meticulous approach, led by MOCA’s investigative teams, to examine all the leads and uncover all the evidence required to make these arrests and bring these charges.”

In August 2020 Wright filed a lawsuit against the Government seeking damages of more than $223 million after he was barred from accessing his bank account which had been frozen as the FID had obtained a restraining order on his finances from the court.

The FID had made the court application on the grounds that Wright and several other individuals were under criminal investigation.

On Wednesday, Jarrett reminded Jamaicans to continue reporting instances of corruption and organised crime to MOCA’s newly created tip hotline, 888-MOCA-TIP.