There’s an ongoing battle for ownership of the mega-million dollar newspaper, Newsday. The company launched by Daniel Chookolingo in 1993, is getting no media publicity because two years after its launch, the daily immediately became the fastest selling newspaper in Trinidad and Tobago outstripping the then 30-year old Trinidad Express and the mighty Guardian which was then over 75 years old. Both newspaper and their vast billion dollar media outfits have remained silent since the case was filed in the High Court in 2014.While Newsday’s up-to-date value remains shrouded, there was a valuation done a decade ago which put its worth at over $200 million dollars. Sources close to Mr Chookolingo says this is a bogus value which was given by the Steve Castagne controlled board to buy out minority shareholders to gain full control of his company.
This NIB Amendment makes Section 34 look like child's play
WPC Harewood
Lawrence Duprey, Clico
Pissed off Castagne with his UNC friendship and lost Clico
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PNM Causes Amendment To NIB Laws To Aid Crooked Dawn Ford And Her Board Against Reports to the Police
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One Percent Show They Are In Charge of T&T, & What They Can Do With Unparalleled Crookedness
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Ford’s brother Rex, Has Unwittingly Exposed Himself For His Duplicity When He Tells His Siblings That Ford Converted their 3 Cents on the Dollar As A Favour
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When The PM Says ”Stop Protecting” gun Criminal Family Members He Must Do The Same
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The 1% Massive Rip Off of The Clico Empire and Duprey Was a Warning To Him When He Got To Get Cosy To The UNC.
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Over $150 Million Dollars In Newsday Dividends Paid That Ford Promised To Pay Shareholders were Given To Max Cuffie To Use Mirror As A PNM Mouthpiece. Mirror Documents Disappear
First published 3rd Dec 2022
The crooked One Percent who now control Newsday newspaper and many other media houses have broken all the rules once again to facilitate a ‘get out of jail free’ passes for Dawn Ford, Cindi Da Costa and Joyce Sinanan. These 3 hard-core, misguided criminal women are known to have illegally facilitated the sale of the 40% Newsday shares formerly owned by the Mirror Group to Steve Castagne of M&M Insurance for a piddling $8 million dollars thereby cheating the shareholders of well over $100 million dollars with a simplistic story that it’s all the money they could get. A few of the hard up shareholders were paid a few hundred thousand dollars each ‘off the books’ to agree to the sale and thereby robbing the other innocent shareholders of huge sums. Some estimates put the 40% shares at three hundred million ($300,000,000.), and may well be true since 10 years of financials were hidden but worse-case scenario evidence backed up by date shows that it is well over one hundred million dollars ($100,000,000.). Ford has refused to produce books and valuation to shareholders and had stopped paying dividends in 2020 in order to force a sale from shareholders, most of who are unemployed and depend on the dividends to survive. So what is really missing is the $150 million dollars in dividends which payment was admitted in Court (millions gifted to Mr Cuffie) plus the $100 million dollars in share value that was sold for $8 million.
The criminal behaviour was exposed by one shareholder who has been demanding how Ford and the board could have sold these extremely valuable shares for $8,000,000. But to date she has not provided any response. Some of this expose has been carried right here in TTJF.
Despite the giveaway $8M, Crooked Ford Only Paid Out $5M. keeping $3M To Play Herself.
Dawn Ford who broke all company laws Steve Castagne whom the
to hand over untold wealth to Castagne Previous Newsday board Kept out
Until the untimely death of Wayne C
In her senseless defence, Ford has been using one of her deceptive sibling supporters, Rex, who peddled the story that Ford only broke the Foreign exchange laws to help repatriate $53,000. U.S. dollars each for two (2) shareholders so she can continue receiving their support, even though she robbed them of millions of dollars each. They actually received 3 cents on the dollar.
This $100 million dollar theft comes after the suspicious death of former chairman of the Choko company, Wayne Chookolingo, who together with all the other Newsday directors, did all in their power for 20 years to keep criminality from the halls of the newspaper business. These hero directors were Therese Mills, William Carpenter, David Renwick, Wayne Chookolingo, legendary editor Arthur Ince and Newsday’s founder Daniel Chookolingo.
Now Ford’s brother, Rex is literally saying that Ford’s breach of the laws was done to help them send US dollars to family members, makes them beholden to her and they should be grateful for that. One of them quipped that if buying US off the books is illegal, then tens of thousands of T&T citizens and businesses have been breaking the laws for decades. The all-important question she or her brother Rex refused to deal with is what happened to the lion’s share of the Newsday shares…why are they peddling false narratives to hide criminality? Unless Rex too is sharing the $100,000,0000 stolen. Shareholders are awaiting his answer to that key question. In addition, Rex Keeps pushing for the defunct Mirror Company to sell its valuable $8 million dollar, office and warehouse complex located on a one acre property in Curepe since he spuriously claims it is a PNM meeting place. Ford claims that the property was valued at $8 million dollars many years ago but she is willing to let it go for a lower price since the market is bad and shareholders will be lucky to get 2 million for it.
Ford and Rex’s motive is to piss of other shareholders so they will accept a giveaway sale of $2 million and God alone knows who will get their ‘cut’. He thinks that since no one has the 50% support to unseat Ford, they will agree to sell for cents on the dollar…the same as what she did with the Newsday shares.
Some opposing shareholders have been asking what’s in it for Rex since he is adamant that it is sold ASAP since he states he does not want it used as a PNM office. Rex has unwittingly exposed his agenda since at one side of his mouth he says he despise Ford and out the other side he has been falsely telling all and sundry that he has taken Ford to court for illegally selling assets without any due process and valuation of the prized Newsday assets. However this was exposed as another brazen lie when other shareholders repeatedly asked him to produce documents filed in court, he could not. A search at the Court’s web site also could not produce any results about his alleged case since it is just a joint scheme with Ford to hoodwink shareholders.
But the real intrigue is that one shareholder who has reported Ford’s criminal deeds to the Commissioner of Police (CoP), who it is understood has already dispatched Inspector Daniel and WPC Harewood from the Anti-Corruption Investigation Bureau in May 2022. It is uncertain why the Fraud Squad wasn’t assigned instead.
The NIB Amendment 2022 Is The Latest PNM’s Version of Section 34, To Protect Crooked Financiers.
Photo: Inspector Daniel / WPC Harewood.
The reports to the police include the breach of the following laws:
The Income Tax Act and Corporation Tax Act for several years for non-payment of taxes and business levy. It was explained to the CoP that the company failed to produce statutory accounts for several years that it was therefore an impossibility to submit taxes which is contrary to the Acts. This figure may be in the hundreds of thousands. The Vat Act 1989,
where it was also reported that the company never bothered to keep accounts or pay Vat to the BIR Vat Office. This sum was potentially in the millions of dollars when the compounded penalties and interest were added on.
The Companies Act 1995, where several sections have been broken with impunity. The act also makes it an offence for failing to provide annual financials etc, etc.
Where it gets ticklish where many of the employees of the Mirror had worked there for 25 to 30 years and have are now due for NIB pension under The National Insurance Act. Dawn Ford had enlisted the cooperation of many of them and simultaneously fired the others she could not co-opt into her nefarious and illegal schemes.
These very same disenfranchised employees have been recently rejected for pension and the reason given is that the Company (meaning Ford) has never paid the NIS contributions to the government which were deducted from their salaries. Under section 40 of the NIB Act, it is a criminal offence for failing to pay NIS contributions. It is suspected she has been pocketing these contributions. Ford is now using part of the $8 million dollar pittance from the Newsday sale that was promised to shareholders to pay all outstanding government fees that she never paid but stole the monies to give to Maxie Cuffie to do a ‘special’ job in helping the PNM win the last 2 general elections …while bragging to shareholders that she single-handedly save the company.
NIB Amendment To Cover Up The One Percent Crimes
And since Ford, Da Costa and Sinanan could all go to jail for this NIB offence, amongst others, certain overtures were made on Ford’s behalf to the political directorate for them to amend the National Insurance Act. The NIB Act was amended effective 5th July 2022. This amendment states that a waiver of penalties and interest has been granted if it is paid before December 2022. Some objecting shareholders think that the police are politically controlled and Ford will be given time to file the missing and fraudulent documents but even so, the NIB amendments do not make the breach of Section 40 of the NIB act go away…Ford has still committed a criminal act as defined.
This NIB amendment is the ‘get out of jail free pass’ that had to be done urgently since a failure for the police to charge Ford and her conspirators may also get the police themselves in trouble once there is a change in the government or the Commissioner of Police. The NIB amendments also allow the long standing employees to get their hard earned pensions. Ford and her cohorts are also covering themselves in case shareholders turn against her and insist the police do their job and prosecute her.
The reports to the various authorities including the BIR, have so far produced no results and it is felt the One Percent elites have been greasing the hands of officials at the main departments. Ford has been alleging over the years that the previous directors have committed offences but could never file any complaint. The one complaint she filed was against director Ms Khan, ended up as a disaster for Ford since Ms Khan was awarded $200,000.00 for false dismissal. Ford conned her way out of paying that $200,000 once again by refusing to pay the court order saying there was no money. She gave Steve Castagne and Max Cuffie all the funds she could get her hands on. Thankfully, Cuffie is unable to enjoy those ill-gotten gains.
It is now understood, that many fly-by-night One Percent businesses are run in the same manner that Ford operated and indeed she was advised by these same crooked people on exactly how to evade paying millions to the government and pocket it. Meanwhile, Ford and her backers, Castagne et al, never expected any of the shareholders who owned the Newsday shares could mount a challenge against literal the giveaway of the company. Those shareholders who were compromised by insignificant payments did not expect master con lady would sell them for $8 million.
Meanwhile, the millions of dollars due to the State for failure by Dawn Ford to submit taxes may be permanently lost due to the hasty amendment of the NIB Act. She seems to have convinced her 2 cohorts in crime, Cindi Da Costa and Joyce Sinanan, that she could make the charges go away. Only thing is that Sinanan is your regular frightened Friday so she may be the next stroke victim before she caves.
Meanwhile, the conspiracy to raid the treasure by the One Percent is on track and they don’t care who knows. Other arms of the media are complicit. The Express newspaper now prints its arch rival and competition, Newsday, which is unheard of in any media organisation worldwide, another first for T&T. It is quite normal that they fight to the bitter end to expose the unsavoury news not supress it. The Express also knowingly omitted a legal requirement that all publications must print the name of the printer on the back page of the publication and this omission is to hide the fact that the media in general are all in cahoots and have the same objective: to protect their agenda and secrecy, promote their friends and last but not least, rip-off the state. Doma’s Gregory Aboud, One Percent mouthpiece, recently wrote in the Express on 3rd July 2022, that the One Percent is squeaky clean and beyond reproaches, who only give, give and give. No mention was made that these are the people who 99 % of the time do the bribing etc.
The Old Choko, as he is fondly called, must be waiting in anticipation for all his children who are complicit in this super crooked misadventure since he dedicated himself to exposing these crimes.
In more obvious corruption, the company’s multi-million dollar press was sold for $20,000. which no one believes especially since Ford refused to say whom she approached to sell it to. In her usual cavalier style, she refused to produce a list of people she states she canvassed in trying to sell it.
Lately, Ford has been writing legal letters trying to stop the barrage of information that has crept into the public domain, but that has not helped since she has not answered or disproved any of the allegations.
Her lying and conspiracies have embroiled the family in murder accusations of the former chairman of the company, Wayne Chookolingo, Newsday shareholders Michael Hart, Suzanne Mills and Frank Thompson all who have made open complaints against the criminality at Newsday and all have died from the same ‘stroke’ symptoms at relatively young ages. In the case of Mills, she actually sent emails about the threats against her life and pleaded with the company’s founder, Daniel Chookolingo, to expose these threats in court. When it was brought to the Court’s attention, it was dismissed out-of-hand. She died not long after that from a suspected stroke. It is been long known that strokes can be brought on by spiking drinks with various chemicals. Surely there can be less messy ways to make a buck. Daniel Chookolingo has complained for a couple of decades that several attempts were made against his life but Ford has brushed them off as conspiracy theories.
This is the second known rip-off of prime assets by the One Percent in recent years. The first one also involved Steve Castagne who was appointed to the Board of Clico to protect the interest of Lawrence Duprey. Mr Duprey was then considered to be the wealthiest man in the Caribbean. He later confessed to friends that he didn’t know that Castagne still had a personal vendetta against him for getting cosy with UNC’s Basdeo Panday. While he was on the Clico board, he collected millions of dollars in benefits and fees and personally purchased 7 high priced apartments in One Woodbrook Place for the pre-construction price, millions less than the final sale price. The Clico board must have been complicit in this under sale of these prime assets just like Ford and the Newsday shares.
The battle for the just settlement of the Newsday shares and the disappearing $100 million is not likely to go away soon. In fact, most likely the Newsday rip-off was just a dry-run to rip off many more companies and it is in the public domain that Petrotrin was one of them.
The entire Newsday episode was a dry run for the One Percent to show that they can use novices and laypersons to carry out their nefarious activities. Only few professional people will willingly face stiff jail for a couple of million.
The recent outburst by PM Rowley that people must stop protecting criminal family members, he is the leader where that is involved. Look at the many ‘questionable’ acts of Minister Al Rawi and his gun toting children etc, etc, etc, the questionable land purchases by Minister Cummings, the many conflict of interests issues with Ministers Stuart Young and Al Rawi and the list is ad nauseam. He has failed to protect the public’s interest but preaches to the docile public. It is little wonder that the PNM and their 1% backers don’t want the Constitution fixed which will enable the country to jail the lawbreakers and seize their assets… it’s because they like it so. Former finance minister, Ms Karen Tesheira has recently said that it’s the big businessmen who are into the majority of criminality in T&T. Ms Tesheira and Newsday’s founder Daniel Chookolingo are the only two outspoken persons to identify the big people behind most of the local crimes but Chookolingo has been calling names of those involved. It is believed that Gary Griffith is intimately aware and all have been targeted by the One Percent.
It’s now over to you Police Inspector Byron Daniel and WPC Harewood, to act before there is more water than flour seeing the collapse of the T&T State.
In legal papers drafted, it left no room for the Ford / Castagne duo to defend themselves over the massive rip off. They are now into interfering with attorneys hired by minority shareholders. The last attorney, one Rajiv, took a $5,000, deposit to advise on how to proceed but refused to report back after some 5 months.
The President of the T&T Republic, Paula Mae Weeks, must stop paying lip service with empty statements like “how the France did we get here.” when everything before her is screaming a crooked state. She ought to use whatever dignity is left in her office and get the DPP to fix our broken system.
Debra Peake, attorney
for some of the crooked One Percent
Involved in the Petrotrin wind-up
