THREE civil servants and a naval officer charged with obtaining funds illegally from the Fiji National Provident Fund (FNPF) appeared at the Suva Magistrates Court yesterday.
The four appeared before Magistrate Deepika Prakash.
Adi Mara Rufina Qaranivalu, Melisateki Sara and Seini Pece Tadulala were granted bail while Jack Edward Hiramatsu has been further remanded in custody.
Mr Hiramatsu, former FNPF employee will reappear in court today and has been instructed to provide proper sureties.
He is charged with five counts of forgery for allegedly forging various legal documents pertaining to the purchase of land.
Adi Mara, a former TLTB employee, is charged with one count of forgery for allegedly forging a certificate of title.
Ms Sara is charged with one count of using forged document and one count of obtaining financial advantage by deception for allegedly obtaining $30,200 from FNPF using forged document while Ms Tadulala, a high school teacher is charged with one count of using a forged document and one count of obtaining financial advantage by deception.
The 32-year-old teacher allegedly obtained $7300 from FNPF using forged documents.
It’s alleged that the former TLTB worker gave a certificate of title to the former FNPF employee after tampering with the said document, knowing that the first accused would use it to withdraw funds from the FNPF.
The former FNPF employee then allegedly altered the title and lodged the same with other forged documents to assume that the third and fourth accused were prospective buyers of the property.
Ms Tadulala and the naval officer then allegedly submitted urban housing assistance withdrawal forms to the first accused.
It is alleged they tricked FNPF officials into accepting the documents as genuine and obtained $37,500 released from their FNPF accounts.
The money was allegedly shared among all the accused persons.
The alleged offences took place between June 6 and 11 this year.
The court also heard that Mr Hiramatsu could possibly face more charges.
