Question

“Turtle Island Case” namely STATE vs 1. ANAND KUMAR PRASAD f/n Alfred Shiri Prasad 2. REENAL PRANEEL CHANDRA f/n Rajendra Chandra 3. REENAL RAJNEIL CHANDRA f/n Rajendra Chandra 4. DEO NARAYAN SINGH f/n Ram Brij Singh 5. SHIRLEY SANGEETA CHAND f/n Alfred S. Prasad 6. ATISHMA KIRTI SINGH f/n Niranjan Singh 3. Answer the following questions: 1. What was the major issue in this case? 2. If you were a teller at the prominent bank in the above case, briefly explain your duty towards the owner of the cheque. Your answer should support the events that took place in the above case. Has the Drawer of the cheque breached their duty towards its bank? (Support your answers with statue laws or case laws) 3. In the above case, paying and collecting banker both escaped charges in the proceeds of crime. How did that happened? What protection does the collecting and paying bank has? (Support it with relevant clauses from statute laws) 4. What are the lessons learnt from the above case if you were working for the bank involved? 5. Search for a similar cheque/bill of exchange/promissory note/mortgage/lien/pledge fraud case in Fiji and briefly discuss how could that have been prevented?

Answer 1

Ans.1:

These six accused were all convicted of conspiracy to defraud along with other counts of forgery, uttering, obtaining on forged documents and money laundering.

Turtle Island Resort is a luxury island resort catering to wealthy tourists which was bought and developed by Mr. Richard Evanson.

In May 2006, Mr. Evanson asked his banker, the 5th accused of a personal recommendation for accountant position. He trusted the 5th accused because she had given him good banking service over the years with one of our largest banking groups.

She recommended her brother, the first accused to the job and he was subsequently hired. Mr. Evanson come to know that while performing his duties, he was forging documents and cheques. His audit showed that he forged a total of 84 cheques amounting to a sum of $840,000. On 46 of those cheques he wrote his own name as payee and on others he wrote the names of family members and friends.

The first accused knew that Mr. Evanson trusted his staff so much, he never scrutinized cheques for less than $10,000. In that way the first accused was able to write so many cheques for slightly less than $10,000, forge Evanson’s signature and bank them to two different accounts in his name and into the accounts of his friends the 2nd and 3rd accused.

In some instances, the first accused would change the name of the payee on a cheque for a sum over $10,000, sometimes even adding figures to the sum written, then forge the initials of Evanson near the alteration. Many of these cheques were made payable to the 4th accused’s company “Shahill and Shohill Grocery and Machinery Repairs Ltd”. The 4th accused used to work with the first accused on Turtle Island and he and his wife (the 6th accused) ran a small grocery/liquor store and the 4th accused did piecemeal vehicle repair.

Throughout this time the 5th accused, the 1st accused’s sister worked in the bank, with every capability of facilitating the processing of the cheques, although there is no evidence that she did that. There was evidence however that she was involved personally in uplifting stop orders on cheques that Mr. Evanson’s Company (SPOR Fiji Ltd) had earlier stopped and there was no authority for her to do that. In addition to that she was instrumental in processing a forged fax that was sent to the bank to remit the sum of $36,000 to Shahill and Shohill. She happened to be “on the spot” when the fax arrived and made sure that it was actioned without delay. As soon as it was processed and after the 5th accused made a phone call, the monies were uplifted.

Ans.2:

The fifth accused is the sister of the first accused and was a teller at that prominent bank. From the very beginning she betrayed the trust of her bank employer and of one of its biggest clients by recommending her brother to Mr. Evanson as a suitable person to be the Turtle Island accountant.

First of all, she should not had recommended her relatives to its clients.

Second, she must have known that her brother had convictions for forgery, larceny and obtaining money on forged documents; all convictions that he spent time in prison for and could have disclosed to Mr. Evanson.

Third, she should not instrumentally manipulate bank records so that some of the forged cheques could be processed, by making unauthorized entries into the bank’s records.

Also, She gave conflicting answers in an investigatory interview with the bank’s auditors about cash deposits into her account. She exceeded her authority at the bank by authorizing a transfer of $36,000 mandated by a forged fax from Turtle Island – pressing a teller over whom she had no authority to process the transfer.

In R v Barrick 81 Cr. App. R (s) 78 the Court said, That “The type of case with which we are concerned is where a person in a position of trust has used his trusted position to defraud his partners or clients or employers. He will usually, as in this case, be a person of hitherto impeccable character. It is practically certain, again as in this case that he will never offend again and, in the nature of things, he will never again and in his life be able to secure similar employment with all that means in the shape of disgrace for himself and hardship for himself and also his family”

Ans.3:

It was said in R v Clark 1998 2 Cr. App. R (S) 95, that save in very exceptional circumstances, where a person in a position of trust, for example an accountant, a solicitor, a bank employee or a postman has abused that trusted and privileged position to defraud his partners, employers or the general public of sizeable sums of money, immediate imprisonment is inevitable unless there are exceptional circumstances or the amount of money involved is very small.

The fifth accused betrayed the trust of her bank employer and manipulated all banking instruments by unauthorised entries to hide the fact. Also, she was non-cooperative and gave conflicting answers in an investigatory interview with the bank’s auditors about cash deposits into her account. Therefore, the bank was not in the position to disclose the facts to its client.

Ans.4:

1. You should not recommend any of your relatives to bank’s client for any position or job. In case, you are recommending someone on the trust of the employer, you should disclose the known facts about the candidate to both your employer and client.
2. Should not indulge in fraudulent activities by manipulating Bank’s recorded.