Police Beat

Update on the incident in Pentecost.
On Friday the 23rd of March 2012, the police officers who have been deployed to Pentecost negotiated a meeting between Lontar and Bunlap concerning different allegations .The two communities agreed to stage a peace ceremony. The communities exchange a pig and two red mats each to allow movement of people again to the gardens, schools and other areas concern. The chiefs prefer to settle the damages and assault cases in their traditional ways. No criminal case was registered by the Police.

The Fraud office at the Vanuatu Police Force is investigating a Theft case which involves a Bred Bank officer who created a new ATM Card and uses a customer’s pin number to withdraw from the customer’s account.
The Fraud unit is also reminding the good citizens of Vanuatu that you must at all times check your accounts in your bank and if you find anything suspicious in your account you have to contact your bank and find out what is happening with your money because we are now receiving a lot of fraud cases in our local & offshore banks implicating bank officers.

The Fraud unit is appealing to the public to be aware of a group people who are going around collecting an amount of Vt30,000v per person as a fee for them to go to Noumea to collect rice and they promise them to receive an amount of Vt160 000vt per month while working in Noumea.
The fraud unit have invited two suspects who are working within this group today 27/03/12 for questioning.
There are 4 other suspects who are still around which two females by the name of, Remon a native from Banks and Margret a native of Tanna are also involve in this group.
The Police is appealing to the public that if you have given an amount of money to any of the above person involved, reporting to fraud unit and lodging a complaint, this was because this group may have misappropriate the funds and possibly have no valid license to operate. Further investigation is continuing.

The criminal case PI No 50 of 2012 which involves the suspects of Vt24 250 000 were released on bail conditions after appearing before the magistrate court on the 23rd day of March 2012.
Having heard Mr Napuati-Counsel for the accused persons and having also heard Mr Blessing, counsel for the state, the court has releases the accused persons on bail under the following conditions, not to commit any offences whilst on bail, not to interfere directly or indirectly with the police investigation or any prosecution witnesses in this matter and to re appear before the court on Thursday the 5th of April 2012 at 9am for further hearing
“The police is urgently appealing to the general public that anyone who thinks that Tamau Trading Limited and its shareholders have defrauded them please come forward and lodge an official complaint to the police fraud unit”.