AN EMPLOYEE AT the Passport Office on Constant Spring Road, Half-Way Tree, St. Andrew, was arrested recently in connection with the theft of more than 700 passports.
Fraud Squad detectives charged Marleone Mitchell, a data entry clerk from Greater Portmore, St. Catherine, following high level investigations into a scam in which stolen passports, believed to be the ones stolen from the Passport Office, are being sold.
Mitchell is charged with forgery, uttering forged documents, simple larceny, conspiracy to deceive and breaches of the Corruption Prevention Act. She was nabbed last week after a woman, whom she allegedly sold a passport to, was caught at the Norman Manley International Airport trying to leave the island for the Bahamas.
The Fraud Squad detectives say their investigations into the scam led them to the incident in which the 700 passports were stolen two years ago.
The police said some time later that year, a woman approached Mitchell for a passport and the accused allegedly told her she could speed up the process to get a passport if she paid $27,000.
The police reported that the woman went to Mitchell's house and paid the money for the passport, which she later used to travel overseas.
Fraud Squad detectives say earlier this month, the woman was about to leave for the Bahamas, when the passport was identified as a forged document. The Immigration Department reportedly made checks and the passport was identified as being among those stolen from the office. She was taken to the Fraud Squad where the woman reportedly agreed to cooperate with the police.
NOT FOUND
The woman took the police to an Edgewater address in Portmore, St. Catherine, in search of Mitchell but she could not be found.
The woman reportedly went to the Passport office and asked for Mitchell by her first name. When Mitchell came to her she reportedly told the accused she had lost her passport and needed a new one. The accused then reportedly gave the woman her telephone number to arrange for another passport. Fraud Squad detectives say Mitchell was arrested and charged after a meeting was arranged between the woman and the accused.
When the matter came up for mention in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court on December 16, Mitchell was remanded in custody until December 22.
In the meantime, the Fraud Squad said it was intensifying its investigations and more arrests could be expected shortly, as they were on the lookout for the stolen passports.
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