Jamaican investigators said more arrests are to be expected following fraud charges laid against three employees of the country’s Institute of Sports (INSPORTS) involving more than USD$1 million on Wednesday.

The Major Organized Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency (MOCA) announced that they have arrested and charged three men in connection with a USD$1.45M (JMD$222m) fraud racket committed at the Institute of Sports (INSPORTS) between 2011 and 2017.

The three – Andrew Wright, Rudolph Barnes and O’Neil Hope - have been charged with a variety of offences including conspiracy to defraud, acquisition, use and possession of criminal property, engaging in transactions involving criminal property and larceny as a servant.

Wright is the promoter of the internationally popular Chug IT and French Connection parties.

All three, MOCA said, are alleged to have been part of a team of former employees of INSPORTS, who wrote, signed and cashed fraudulent cheques for payees who were neither employees nor contracted workers of the entity.

The suspected fraud and other irregularities were detected by INSPORTS in 2017 during an examination of their financial records. The matter was then reported to MOCA triggering an investigation.

Major Basil Jarrett, MOCA’s Director of Communication, expects that there will be additional arrests in connection with the case.  “These arrests are the first set of arrests as MOCA currently has warrants out for several other individuals,” said Barrett, who in a statement praised MOCA’s partners, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) the Financial Investigations Division (FID) and Tax Administration Jamaica (TAJ), for the critical role they played in the investigations.

“These types of investigations are complex undertakings requiring thoroughness and collaboration so it took a meticulous approach, led by MOCA’s investigative teams, to examine all the leads and uncover all the evidence required to make these arrests and bring these charges”.

Meanwhile, Jamaica’s Sports Minister Olivia Grange said the arrests are an indication of the efforts to regularize operations at INSPORTS since she assumed responsibility for the entity in 2016.

“I have noted the arrests and charges brought by the Major Organized Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency as part of a long-running investigation into serious irregularities that took place several years ago at the Institute of Sports. I await the outcome of the process,” she said.

“On my return to government in 2016, I received a Special Audit of the Institute of Sports by the Auditor General, which showed an organization that was continually breaking the law, badly managed and in need of urgent transformation.

I understand that the arrests and charges are linked to that period when INSPORTS was considered a rogue agency.

Under our watch, the Institute of Sports is a completely transformed agency with improved internal controls, is well-run and delivering its mandate of developing sports at the grassroots.”

Jamaica's Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia Grange, has announced prize money totaling $900,000 for the top-four teams emerging from the Institute of Sports (INSPORTS) 2023 primary schools’ football and netball competitions.

In the announcement made on Thursday at the National Stadium during the launch of the draw for the final round of these competitions, Grange outlined that the winning schools in both the netball and football competitions will receive $200,000 each with the runners-up getting $125,000.

“The third-placed teams will collect $75,000 and $50,000 will go to the fourth-placed teams. In addition, the winning coaches will get gift vouchers of $10,000 each,” she added.

The competitions started with more than 200 schools and now there are 32 in football and 32 in netball.

Grange outlined what she hopes to achieve with the launch of this competition.

“The aim of this program is to create the biggest age group competition of its kind in the English-speaking Caribbean and it will act as a feeder programme for both Netball and Football at all levels.”

She also announced that INSPORTS will be one of the entities visited by Trinidad and Tobago’s minister of sport and community development, Shamfa Cudjoe, along with 11 delegates when she is in Jamaica for an Anti-doping conference.

“She’s coming here to look at our athletes insurance plan, she’s going to visit INSPORTS and she’s going to look at your program, the program that you’re now participating in because they don’t do that program and they want to do a competition similar to what we are doing for you,” she said.

Minister Grange also made a presentation of hurdles to the 2019 winners of the track and field competitions in the three regions, Eastern, Central and Western. The respective winners were St Richard’s Primary, Spanish Town Primary and Black River Primary.

The Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, the Honourable Olivia Grange says her ministry will be moving to finalize the transformation and streamlining of the national sports entities during this calendar year.

The national sports entities are the Sports Development Foundation, Independence Park Limited, and the Institute of Sports.

Minister Grange gave the update during a meeting of the Board of Directors of Independence Park Limited on Wednesday. She said the transformation was aimed at creating a more efficient and more effective government sport system.

Minister Grange urged the new board to pick up the pace of project implementation.  She said it was vital that the National Stadium and Trelawny Stadium infrastructure development project, which was affected by delays caused by covid-19 and weather conditions, get back on track as soon as possible.

The proposal for the Redevelopment and Upgrading of the National Stadium and Trelawny Stadium is going through all the required stages of the Public Investment Management Secretariat, including submission of a comprehensive project proposal, architectural drawings and the development of a 5-year Business Plan.

The project is now at the final stage which includes submitting financial projections before it can be recommended to the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service for funding.

The members of the Board of Independence Park Limited are: Dr. the Honourable Michael Fennell (Chairman), Mr David Shirley (Deputy Chairman), Mrs Annmarie Heron, Assistant Commissioner Terrence Bent, Lieutenant Colonel Dameon Creary, Mr Lenford Salmon, Mr Carlton Dennis, Ms Audrey Chin, Mr Edward Barnes, Dr Peter Charles, Ms Shaneek Clacken, Ms Stefani Dewar, Major Desmon Brown, General Manager (ex officio)

The members have been appointed to serve for two years.  The new board was constituted in keeping with the National Policy for Gender Equality to ensure that a minimum of 30 per cent of either sex makes up the composition of government boards.