Vicky, husband, travel agency to face trial at High Court

FRAUD accused Vicky Boodram, 38, and ex-husband Ravi Arjoonsingh, 43, have been committed to stand trial in the High Court on 108 charges.

Senior magistrate Cherril-Ann Antoine, found a prima-facie case had been made out even against their travel agency – Boodram’s Travels & Ship Ahoy. Though no charges were laid against it, the magistrate instructed that the police approach the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, for the company to be indicted to face a judge and jury.

Boodram’s Travels, of La Romaine, no longer operates, but whether the company holds assets from which cruise-ship customers could recover their money is not publicly known.

Antoine said people who used their life savings to buy cruise tickets lost $1,285,800.

In 2011, the Fraud Squad investigated Boodram’s Travels on cruise-ship tickets sales to 108 customers who had responded to newspaper and television advertisements. The cruise, dubbed Carnival Victory, was scheduled to sail between April 17 and 24, 2011. It never did.

Boodram and Arjoonsingh have 101 similar charges pending in the Port of Spain magistrates’ court. She is also facing money-laundering charges over the purchase of a Mercedes Benz and a house in Palmiste, San Fernando.

Yesterday was Boodram and Arjoonsingh’s first committal on the first set of charges.

After voluminous legal submissions by attorneys Jagdeo Singh, instructed by Lana Lakhan, for Arjoonsingh; attorney Jeevan Rampersad for Boodram; and replies by special prosecutor Elaine Green, Antoine read her decision in the San Fernando magistrates’ court. She said the Forgery Act mandates 14 years jail if found guilty. Cruise-ship customers, the magistrate added, spent up to $9,000 per ticket. There were no refunds. Antoine said that as a shareholder/director, Arjoonsingh has a case to answer, as some of the business documents bear his name.

She added that the law made Arjoonsingh party to everything that happened.

Antoine then ordered the complainant Sgt Vinelle Bassarath, to apply to the DPP for an indictment against Boodram’s Travels. She granted Arjoonsingh continuing $2 million bail and ordered him to report to the San Fernando police station on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Rampersad pleaded for Antoine to grant Boodram bail, but it was refused on the ground that she had escaped from the women’s prison in Arouca during the hearing of the charges.