It was a huge human trafficking scandal in October of 2010 when revelations surfaced that 3 private planes with 33 Chinese total made stealth landings at the Phillip Goldson International Airport in September and were slipped through Immigration - never to be seen again.
Much was made when six immigration officers were criminally charged - part of what was supposed to be a vast web of corruption at the Immigration Department.
But this morning in Magistrate's Court, all six were freed when the charges were struck out for want of prosecution - basically because the file was at the DPP's office and disclosure had not been made.
The accused, now free persons are: 29 year old Candra Wade, 42 year old Angelica Lima, 33 year old Jason Daly, 30 year old Lindsay Wade,?37 year old Mark Tench, and 37 year old Martin Guy.
Candra Wade was charged with 10 counts of purposely aiding and facilitating the commission of an offence under the Immigration Act and 9 counts of forgery of an official document.
Lima was charged with 12 counts of purposely aiding and facilitating and 12 counts of forgery of an official document. Lindsay Wade was charged with 2 counts of purposely aiding and facilitating and 2 counts of forgery of an official document.
Daly was charged with 8 counts of purposely aiding and facilitating and 9 counts of forgery of an official document. Tench was charged with 2 counts of purposely aiding and facilitating and 2 counts of forgery of an official document. Guy was charged with 2 counts of purposely aiding and facilitating and 2 counts of forgery of an official document. That is a total of 72 charges - and today in court all of them fell by the wayside. It was initially alleged that the immigration officers facilitated the stealth landing, and processing while also concealing relevant documentation.
Again, that allegation is only that as the charges have been struck out. It's a major embarrassment for the government which had professed that that this was a crackdown on corruption. So what went wrong? Well, we spoke to the DDP this evening, and here's what she had to say: "The file in the matter was sent recently - to the DPP's office - as far as we are concerned - the matter was still under investigation, as there remained quite a number of things to be done by the police in order to enable the prosecution to establish the charges that were laid."
But it's not over, she added that "We are working with the police and immigration to ensure that the proper persons are prosecuted in this matter - and we fully intend to re-institute charges against the appropriate persons, once the police investigation to our mind has gone as far as it should go.
She repeated that, quote: "the matter was just simply not ready for preliminary inquiry in its present state." That's what the DPP had to say, and we'll say that it seems highly unusual that a matter in which charged were brought in October should only be reaching the DPP's office in April or May. We'll wait and see when those charges will be re-introduced.
