On Monday May 30, 2016 three suspects, namely, R.L. (56), F.A.A.B. (55) en E.A.I.F (36) have been arrested following the complaint of embezzlement in employment, theft and forgery filed by the head of the Finance Department on November 25, 2010 against employees of the St. Maarten Tourism Bureau. They will be heard on the currently available research results. This will probably take several days, given the size of the dossier.
The National Detective Agency has been busy with a long-term investigation against the staff of the St. Maarten Tourism Bureau. In this regard the National Detective Bureau conducted on October 15, 2015 house searches on five different locations. This investigation, called Colade, is now almost completed.
The long duration of the investigation is due to the fact that a lot of information had to be obtained from abroad and their analysis has taken much time. In addition, the National Detectives Department, in particular when the investigation started, had a very limited capacity and was constantly confronted with other big investigations.
The case against a fourth suspect E.J.D. (51)in the Colade investigation has already been brought in front of the judge. On March 25, 2015 he was sentenced to one (1) day in jail for complicity in the deliberate misappropriation of money or monetary instruments as an official.
The prosecution intends to present this investigation to court in the second half of 2016.