Gov’t to keep $17 million found in house

St Andrew businessman Winston Graham will have to forget about $17 million that was taken from his property in Smokey Vale.

The money, all cash, was found by the narcotics police division that conducted a search at the premises after obtaining a warrant. The cash was seized along with a 2012 BMW motor car.

The Financial Investigations Division (FID) said Graham could not provide proof of how those funds were acquired.

The FID then went to court and applied for the money to be forfeited under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA). The court, in an order handed down by Judge Stephanie Orr, via teleconference in the Sutton Street Parish Court last Friday, ordered that the money be forfeited. Graham was also ordered to pay a part of the legal expenses incurred by the FID.

Send a strong message

In welcoming the ruling, Courtney Smith, director of legal services at the FID, said the ruling "should send a strong message of deterrence to anybody involved in crime or planning to enter a life of crime with the intention of benefiting from that crime".

Graham's run-in with the law began on June 7, 2012 when he was allegedly found with drugs in the back of a car he was driving. According to the FID, members of the narcotics police, having received certain information, went to a property on Deanery Drive in Kingston, belonging to Franklyn Thompson, to conduct a search. It is alleged that upon reaching the premises, a silver Toyota Mark X motor car attempted to exit, but was prevented from doing so by the cops.

Graham, the alleged driver, and Thompson, who was said to be the passenger, were in the car. Following a search of the vehicle in the presence of both men, 10 parcels of cocaine weighing just over 22lb was discovered hidden in the trunk.

Both men were slapped with criminal charges. However, following a trial in the Half-Way Tree Criminal Court in 2015, Thompson was freed of drug trafficking and money laundering charges. Graham was found guilty.