3 years jail for $2.3 fraud

A magistrate in Trinidad and Tobago jailed a former security guard for three years Monday after finding him guilty of fraud involving more than $2 million. The magistrate said the sentence was appropriate since Collin Murrell had a "minor role" in the fraud, that he cooperated with police and was remorseful.

Murrel's lawyer entered a guilty plea for her client and explained that he was experiencing financial difficulty and "desperately wanted to keep his family together".

So he found a fraudulent way to do it.

This is how the fraud was accomplished: Over a six week period he stole just over $2.3 million from a businessman’s Unit Trust Corporation (UTC) account and deposited it into a bogus account which he opened at a local bank.

The 37-year-old man was caught in a police sting operation and has spent the past 16 months in jail awaiting trial, but he is not getting credit for the time spent behind bars.

He was part of a scheme involving other persons who are yet to be caught.

Murrell's scam involved a forged letter and false identification. He faxed a letter purported to be written by Steve Scheult to the UTC seeking a withdrawal of funds and later, using bogus identification, collected a cheque for $180,000 from Scheult’s account.

He subsequently opened an account with First Citizens Bank (FCB) where he deposited the cheque. The prosecution told the court that Murrell stole $2,355,000 during a six-week period.

When the legitimate owner of the UTC account found out about the missing money he reported the matter to police, who then established a “sting operation,” in which Murrell was held.

The stolen money has not been recovered. The UTC issued a media release earlier this year in reference to the court case stating that since the incident, it has “substantially improved its controls and measures to protect our customers’ investments.

“For security reasons, details of these controls and measures cannot be publicly disclosed,” it said.