| Politics/ Vanuatu: FIJI MAN AT CENTRE OF A $M SCAM |
Vanuatu’s Kilman victim of massive fraud case
Johnety Jerety
A man reportedly carrying several Fiji passports is wanted in neighbouring Vanuatu in connection with a multi-million dollar fraud that led to the downfall last July of one of Vanuatu’s powerful politicians.
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Got you... Vanuatu police nabbed one of the four men implicated in the multi-million dollar scam at Port Vila’s Bauerfield Airport.
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Sato Kilman—who was deputy prime minister until his sacking on July 29—was not linked to the fraud directly.
But Prime Minister Ham Lini held him responsible after some officials of the party he led, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), were reportedly involved in the scam.
The axe also fell on another PPP minister in the Lini cabinet—Dansten Hilton—who until the July cabinet reshuffle held the youth and development portfolio.
Kilman has not made a public statement since his relegation to the opposition, although Lini—in consultations with the Pacific Islands Forum—agreed that his former deputy can continue as chair of the Pacific Islands Forum’s Eminent Persons Group on Fiji.
Investigations on the scam—involving government cheques for the PPP’s MPs constituencies—have also widened to include some senior police officers who are members of the country’s Criminal Investigations Department (CID), as well as two French citizens.
Local authorities believe the man behind the scam was a Indo Fijian who goes by the name of Shalendra Sen Sinha.
He fled to Fiji since the discovery of the scam. It is alleged he and his accomplices altered figures on government issued cheques given to PPP MPs. They collected over 22 million Vatu (US$237,800) from the National Bank of Vanuatu in the months of June and July 2007.
The modified cheques were cashed on three different occasions, local police say.
The first cheque—number 2154172—for VT500,000 was altered to read VT11,805,000 and cashed on June 27 at the National Bank in Port Vila.
The second—cheque number 2154925—for VT7500 became VT9,895,000 and was cashed on July 3, 2007.
The third cheque—number 542154189—for an amount of VT280,000 was changed to VT980,000 and cashed on July 5, 2007. Money defrauded totalled VT22,680,000 (US$245,189).
Two of the cheques were MP allocations towards a community development fund and the third was intended for a Sports Power company.
Several members of parliament have also been questioned by police since the scam was exposed.
The Vanuatu Police Commissioner has also suspended four senior police officers in its Criminal Investigation Department.
Also caught in the web are two French citizens whose yacht was used to allegedly ferry Sinha to Fiji in the wee hours of July 10, 2007.
Fiji police working with their ni-Vanuatu counterparts have since arrested Sinha, as well as the two French citizens and a former ni-Vanuatu police officer in Fiji soil.
With the exception of Sinha, who is wanted in Fiji to answer several other charges of fraud, the other three men were escorted by Vanuatu police back to Port Vila in July.
Preliminary investigations by police in Port Vila showed the four men made their attempted bid for freedom on the morning of July 10 after their fourth attempt to cash another cheque number 2155258 for VT26,800,000 was foiled the day before. The original amount of VT500,000 had been altered.
They sailed to Fiji on board the ‘Luciole,’ a yacht registered as belonging to one of the French citizens.
The yacht, according to the local police, has been in Vanuatu since May 2007. Sinha is said to be holding three Fiji passports under three different pseudonyms. Apart from the cases in Fiji, he has a pending currency forging case in Vanuatu.
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