A for­mer cashier as­signed to the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty has been charged in con­nec­tion with the al­leged em­bez­zle­ment of $718,000 from the State.

On Ju­ly 24, of­fi­cers of the Fraud Squad ar­rest­ed for­mer cashier Kavi­ta Ma­haraj at a res­i­dence in San­gre Grande. She had re­port­ed­ly been ab­sent from du­ty since 2024 and had not been for­mal­ly sus­pend­ed dur­ing the pe­ri­od un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Her re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in­clud­ed col­lect­ing cash pay­ments for ser­vices such as work per­mits and re­mit­ting those funds to the Min­istry.

An in­ter­nal au­dit by the Min­istry re­vealed dis­crep­an­cies in fi­nan­cial records be­tween Jan­u­ary and Sep­tem­ber 2023. It is al­leged that Ma­haraj fal­si­fied of­fi­cial records and mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ed funds dur­ing this pe­ri­od.