Joel Jack, Deputy Chief Secretary and Secretary of Finance and the Economy, THA. Photo: T&T Guardian

Sev­er­al Venezue­lans in To­ba­go have been charged and ap­peared in court in the last two weeks for hav­ing the fraud­u­lent ex­ten­sion stamps on their pass­ports. The most re­cent de­vel­op­ment was last Fri­day.

The rash of fraud­u­lent ex­ten­sion stamps sprung up in re­cent weeks as T&T has ex­pe­ri­enced an in­flux of Venezue­lans. Most have been com­ing to try and reg­is­ter in T&T's amnesty ex­er­cise which con­tin­ues un­til June 14.

Reg­is­tra­tion will al­low Venezue­lans who are here legal­ly and il­le­gal­ly to stay in T&T and work for a year. The ex­er­cise con­tin­ued at cen­tres in Port-of-Spain, Dun­can Vil­lage, south Trinidad, and Scar­bor­ough yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, last Fri­day at the Scar­bor­ough court a Venezue­lan na­tion­al ap­peared to face a charge of hav­ing a fraud­u­lent im­mi­gra­tion ex­ten­sion stamp in his pass­port, Im­mi­gra­tion and To­ba­go po­lice of­fi­cials con­firmed.

He told the court he had "giv­en his pass­port to some­one" who had ob­tained the stamp for him. Of­fi­cials said he had no at­tor­ney and plead­ed guilty. The of­fence is seen as tam­per­ing with a le­gal in­stru­ment, they added.

The man was fined $3,000 and stern­ly rep­ri­mand­ed by the mag­is­trate who said it was a very se­ri­ous of­fence to have such fraud­u­lent items in an of­fi­cial doc­u­ment and a strong mes­sage had to be sent to those who try to do it.

Two weeks pri­or to that, To­ba­go po­lice said four Venezue­lan men al­so ap­peared in the To­ba­go court charged with hav­ing fraud­u­lent im­mi­gra­tion ex­ten­sion stamps on their doc­u­ments.

One of the men said in his de­fence that the pe­ri­od he had been al­lowed to stay for had ex­pired pre­vi­ous­ly and Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion in Trinidad had re­fused to ex­tend his stay. He claimed that some­one had ap­proached him "on the street" and he had paid $2,000 TT for an ex­ten­sion stamp that seemed re­al.

The men were charged $4,000 each by the mag­is­trate. The mag­is­trate, in that case, al­so rep­ri­mand­ed the men, adding such acts had to be dis­cour­aged.

Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials have ex­plained that when a stamp is test­ed un­der a cer­tain light it shows up and if it does not show, it's not re­al.