No deals with Rowley

ADMITTING bank account number 0229459435 is that of his company, C&C International Trading, at 82 Avenue, Miami, Florida, managing director Charlie Diaz told Newsday yesterday that he sells heavy equipment to A&V Drilling.

But he vehemently denied his company paid a company called Formula 1 Trading in the United States.

“C&C never did any business with a Formula 1, nor paid money to a person named Keith Rowley or any person in Trinidad,” Diaz told Newsday in a telephone interview from Miami.

Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal, in Parliament on Tuesday, named Diaz’s company C&C in a wire-transfer scandal in which he said the names “Keith Rowley” and “Vidya Deokiesingh” are on wire transfer documents. Moonilal steered clear of saying whether Vidya Deokiesingh was the defeated PNM candidate in the last local government elections, and who is currently on suspension from state-owned Petrotrin, having been featured in the company’s recent internal audit fake-oil scandal.

Diaz, saying he read yesterday’s newspaper reports implicating C&C, denied there were any wire transfer documents showing C&C received or paid money to any company or person, whether in Trinidad or any other part of the world, in which the names “Keith Rowley” and “Vidya Deokiesingh” were listed.

He said the document shown by Moonilal in Parliament accurately bears his company’s bank account number, but referred Newsday to online registry checks of companies which, he said, showed there exist none carrying the name “Formula One Trading.”

“At no time did C&C Int’l, operating in Miami for the past 17 years, pay monies to Formula 1 Trading, because it doesn’t exist. Besides, one cannot transfer funds in the United States from a company, to any single individual without approval.”

Online checks by Newsday yesterday of the Florida Department of State Division of Corporation registry showed it lists four companies bearing the name Formula One, their complete company names being: Formula One Trucking Inc; Formula One of Venice; Formula One of Vero Beach LLC; and Formula One of Vero Beach Inc. However, only two were listed as being active.

Diaz said the wire-transfer document being circulated on social media appeared to have been processed outside TT.

“I have been doing business with A&V for a number of years and yes, Mr Baksh has wired funds for me to source heavy equipment for his drilling companies.

“I have never done any transaction for anyone with any other name than Nazim Baksh in Trinidad.

There is no connection between the account number which is my company’s bank account, that is correctly quoted in your newspaper, and any other person in TT, or the company called Formula One.”

Diaz gave Newsday copies of his company’s dealings with A&V Drilling.

Contacted yesterday, Baksh told Newsday, “I have been buying equipment from C&C in Miami for years.

We are in no way, as Mr Diaz has said, linked to any wire transfer in which any other company or names of people are the beneficiaries.”