A 35-YEAR-OLD Indian national accused of conspiracy to defraud, appeared in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court on Thursday.
Jerome Jayamarasu, of a Kingston 10 address, pleaded not guilty when he appeared before Resident Magistrate Georgianna Frazer.
The court heard that in January 2006, the National Commercial Bank received a report from the Financial Investigation Division about a series of fraudulent credit card transactions at various merchants. One of these merchants was a company owned and operated by Jayamarasu. He is also accused of having a fraudulent passport and two fake visas, one Chinese, and the other Indian.
ALLEGED
It is alleged that between January 7 and 23, fraudulent transactions totalling $3,069,550 were processed by the accused with the credit card machine at his business place. When questioned about some of the transactions, he reportedly said he had sold tiles to a customer. He is also accused of saying that he only processed four cards, even though the records show that he tried about 18 cards and obtained money from 12. It is also reported that the money from these transactions were credited to Jayamarasu's business and immediately withdrawn.
On February 16, the police arrested two men after they allegedly went to a particular business place to collect proceeds from the illegal transactions. The police noted that some of the cards bore similar numbers to those used by Jayamarasu's company. When the men were questioned they reportedly said they were working with the accused and two other men. The other men had made earlier appearances in court, but Thursday was Jayamarasu's first appearance.
He was offered bail in the sum of $2.5 million, ordered to surrender his travel documents and a stop order was made at the ports. He is also expected to report to the police three times a week. All three accused persons are to return to court on July 4.
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