However, repeated efforts by The Sunday Gleaner to determine just how much money has 'disappeared', and the circumstances surrounding the 'disappearance' have so far been unsuccessful.

"To be honest, I don't have the figure. I know that there was an incident where funds were being held for 'Zekes' (Donald Phipps). That was one incident, and I think there was another incident, either one or two more," Major Richard Reece, permanent secretary in the Ministry of National Security, told The Sunday Gleaner on Friday.

But that was not supported by Pamella Folkes, head of the FID.

During a telephone conversation, Folkes said the unsolved case in 2007, where $18.4 million was stolen from the agency's vault, was the only time money being held by FID went missing.

"That's the only time money has been found missing; none before and none after," she said.

Multimillion-dollar heist

Folkes was quick to point out that the multimillion-dollar heist was still a "police matter".

However, she left office on Friday before responding to The Sunday Gleaner's specific queries about the status of cash and property seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) and its predecessors - the Money Laundering Act and the Drugs Offences (Forfeiture of Proceeds) Act.

Millions of dollars have been seized from criminals but the official data show that only a fraction has so far gone to the Government, with a sizeable portion unaccounted for.

According to government sources, there is a problem with the storing of this money and no one can say with certainty how much has been stolen.

The sources point to November 2007, when it was first revealed that $17 million had been stolen from a vault in the FID offices.

The missing millions was money seized by the police and was being kept by the FID as evidence in several cases before the courts.

The tidy sum went missing between August and October 2007. When the smoke cleared, an official report submitted to the then new Finance Minister Audley Shaw, by Christine Chambers, who headed the FID at the time, showed that more than $18.4 million (US$259,857 and J$66,100) had been stolen from the vault.

While acknowledging that some of the stolen cash was money taken from imprisoned Matthews Lane strongman, Donald 'Zekes' Phipps, head of the Major Investigation Task Force, Assistant Commissioner of Police Les Green, said "it was not all his".

Deficiencies

As the revelation of the stolen millions embarrassed the FID, Shaw said it was clear that several deficiencies existed at the division.

In a bid to shore up the personnel and operational efficiency of the FID, Shaw handed Colonel Trevor MacMillan, who was then a special adviser in the finance ministry, the job of plugging the gaps in the division.

Shaw also asked the Bank of Jamaica to safeguard all remaining funds at the FID.

- T.R.

SUCCESSES OF POCA TO DATE

The utilisation of POCA has resulted in the following operational statistics: