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FORMER government ministers, key financiers of the United National Congress, the political party itself and several other business people conspired together and allegedly formed ghost companies which collected millions of dollars from the Airports Authority for work not done during the construction of the new Piarco Airport Terminal, and the money gained was then allegedly split among themselves.

This forms the genesis of the new charges laid against eight of the named alleged conspirators who appeared in court yesterday, some of whom are already before the court on other unrelated charges relating to the same project.

Former finance and tourism minister Brian Kuei, his companion Renee Pierre, chairman of Northern Construction Ltd and former Chairman of Tourism and Industrial Development Company (Tidco) Ishwar Galbaransingh, former chairman of the Maritime Financial Group Steve Ferguson, former chairman of the National Insurance Property Development Company Ltd Edward Bayley, financial manager of NCL Amrith Maharaj and former chairmen of the Airports Authority Ameer Edoo and Tyrone Gopee appeared in court in two batches and were all released on bail.

A two-and-a-half year investigation, led by the Anti-Corruption Investigation Bureau, assisted by a team of forensic accountants, including Canadian Robert Lindquist, allegedly traced the movement of millions of dollars, some of which was used towards the credit card account of Kuei Tung, while a substantial sum was used to purchase properties in Florida.

They were jointly charged with conspiring between January 1, 1995, and December 31, 2001, with five other persons, not yet charged, and five companies, to obtain contracts and payments or settlements of a total face value of up to $1.6 billion consisting of the costs of the Piarco Airport Design and Project Management.

The charge accuses them of corruptly receiving unlawful payments of up to $144,048,858 with intent to defraud the Airports Authority, Nipdec, the Government and the public, by falsely pretending that the process involved in obtaining the contracts and payments was open, honest and competitive although the fraud was facilitated by the accused themselves who then held strategic positions overseeing the project.

The drama surrounding the arrests began on Monday night when police arrested both Edoo and Bayley, who temporarily resided in Costa Rica, at the Piarco Airport, while police scaled the walls of Gopee's Lange Park, Chaguanas, home and took him into custody and in a coordinated exercise arrested Kuei Tung and his companion, Pierre.

Shortly after midnight, attorneys representing the five persons had managed to get Justice Prakash Moosai to convene court at the Hall of Justice and they persuaded him to vary an order on the arrest warrant to allow the Registrar of the Supreme Court to approve the million-dollar bail bonds.

Around 4 a.m. yesterday, Kuei Tung, Pierre, Edoo and Gopee were released from police custody after Moosai allowed them to go home and return with their bail documents (at 9 a.m at the High Court) which were approved before they appeared along with Bayley, who was denied bail, until their appearance before Magistrate Ejenny Espinet in the Port of Spain First Magistrate's Court, around 11 a.m.

Espinet expressed concern that she had no record of bail being fixed for four of the accused before her and wondered why the four other accused walked into the prisoner's dock from the public gallery.

But defence attorney Gillian Lucky informed Espinet that the four had been granted conditional bail which had since been approved. Another defence attorney, Ian Brooks, said that the Registrar now had to forward the bail bonds to the magistrate's court. Kuei Tung and Pierre were granted $1.5 million bail each, while Edoo and Gopee were ordered to post $1 million dollar bonds.

Espinet also granted Bayley bail in the sum of $2 million and complied with a request or prosecutor Gilbert Peterson SC, to order the accused to report twice weekly to the Four Roads Police Station and surrender all his travel documents.

In a later hearing, before Magistrate Avason Quinlan, which began at 4.15 p.m. and concluded 30 minutes later, Ferguson, Galbaransingh and Maharaj, were each allowed bail in the sum of $2 million and they would join the other accused when they re-appear in court tomorrow.

It also specifies that among those who benefitted from multi-million dollar payout were the United National Congress, project consultants Ronald Birk, Eduardo Hillman, Raul Gutierrez, Ferguson, Kuei Tung, Galbaransingh and three companies of the Maritime Financial Group.

Police confirmed that efforts would be made to extradite Birk, Hillman and Gutierrez, all of Florida, to this country to face the charges while two other accused, including a former government minister are expected to be arrested today.

The conspiracy charge alleges that a former government minister, Edoo and Galbaransingh were appointed to lead a task force to fast track the construction of the project which was being managed by Birk Hillman Consultants who had the responsibility of awarding the lucrative contracts and evaluating the bidders.

However, the charge alleges, Northern Construction Ltd (NCL) made a false claim when it stated that it was acting on behalf of a consortium comprising of Northern Construction Ltd, Yorke Structures Ltd and Coosals's Construction Company (NYC) in obtaining the contracts and the consultants tailored the consortium's bid although NCL did not meet the requirements of having the required asset base.

The conspiracy involving the three companies of the Maritime Group alleges that they purported to issue fake bonds vouching for the financial independence of NCL in the award of several multi-million dollar contracts.

It went further to allege that Ferguson, Galbaransingh and Gutierrez formed an undisclosed business partnership with secret offshore banking arrangements.

The same charge alleges that a former government minister, Kuei Tung, Edoo, Galbaransingh, Bayley, Gopee, former executive director of Nipdec Trevor Romano (now deceased) and another person abused their public office by accepting corrupt personal and political payments or career enhancement in return for public contract awards and administrative decisions favouring the foreign consultants NCL and Calmaquiq Engineering Corporation.