Commercial Crime Unit to move to western division

The Public Sector and Commercial Crime Unit will now move its operation to the western division because they suspect that funds at Fiji Islands Revenue and Customs Authority's Lautoka office have also been misappropriated in a similar manner as in its Suva office.

Investigations have hinted that the network is nationwide and that similar things are happening in the western division with more FIRCA officers being implicated.

Police allege that there are officers in FIRCA's Lautoka office who might have colluded and conspired with individuals to generate fictitious tax return TINS and directed the money into separate bank accounts of individuals with whom they conspired to commit the felony with.

Meanwhile, an eight day operation by the CID police officers in the Suva FIRCA office has led to the interrogation of 18 people and seen the charging of 2 senior FIRCA officers and 9 members of the public on allegations for defrauding FIRCA to an amount of $354,000.

The Ready Action Unit Intelligence had placed two senior FIRCA officers under surveillance.

These 2 were recently taken into custody before the matter was referred to the Economic Crime Division.

It is alleged that the two senior officers have generated fictitious tax return TINS, directed funds into 8 separate individual accounts in 3 different banks.

It is further alleged that the suspects had colluded and conspired with individuals and received these funds.

Two FIRCA Officers and 9 civilians have been charged.

FIRCA Chief Executive, Jitoko Tikolevu said they have adopted certain measures to curb the problem.