FBI Agents Working along with Local Trinidad Police in Kidnapping and Murder of Balram Maharaj

That is correct, FBI agents not only working along side and advising local police from Trinidad, but also helping in the search and actually finding the missing body of Balram Maharaj. FBI agents coming to the aid at the request and physically searching in an island in the Caribbean to help find a missing person. The FBI accomplished their goal and provided closure to a missing persons case on a Caribbean island. Seems the FBI is allowed to search and provide more than just advice and observe in missing person cases; they did in Trinidad and it paid dividends.

Balram Maharaj has been missing since April 6, 2005 when he was snatched from the Samaan Tree Bar in Aranguez.

Maharaj, 62, a Trinidadian now resident in the US and a US war veteran, was snatched from the Samaan Tree Bar in Aranguez on April 6.

According to police reports, Maharaj, who was here on a two-week vacation, was approached by an armed man who bundled him into a waiting car.

A $3-million ransom demand was subsequently made for his safe release.

(The Trinidad Guardian)

The United States government also provided a reward for information and the safe return for Balram Maharaj.

The United States Government is now offering a US$10,000 reward to anyone who can provide information leading to the safe release of kidnap victim Balram “Balo” Maharaj, and the arrest and conviction of his abductors.

It would seem that the FBI was invited to help aid and asked to come search for the missing Balram Maharaj after the discovery of the decomposed body of kidnap victim Samdaye Rampersad on Thursday in Claxton Bay. The FBI detectives went into the Santa Cruz forest yesterday to search for the body of former US soldier Balram Maharaj.

FOLLOWING the discovery of the decomposed body of kidnap victim Samdaye Rampersad on Thursday in Claxton Bay, officers of the Northern Division Task Force, the Homicide Bureau and three visiting Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) detectives went into the Santa Cruz forest yesterday to search for the body of former US soldier Balram “Balo” Maharaj. The exercise was conducted in the Flatrock, Grand Curacaye, area bet-ween 9 am and 3 pm. Police recovered ashes in the forest, but pending forensic testing, the cops could not say if the remains of a body was among the ashes.

(The Trinidad & Tobago Newsday)

Although local police told Newsday that the “FBI officers were simply observing the exercise and making recommendations,” it appears that there may have been much cooperation between the two law enforcement agencies. The FBI appeared to have also participated in the search efforts as well as they are the ones that discovered the remains of Ballram Maharaj.

On Sunday, January 8, 2006 after nearly 9 months the body of Maharaj was found by the FBI cut up into in pieces and disposed of into plastic barrels.

The remains of former US soldier Ballram Maharaj were found in the lower Santa Cruz forest by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) yesterday.

The 63-year-old kidnap victim’s body was found nine months after he was snatched outside a San Juan bar. Maharaj’s body was found cut in pieces and disposed of into plastic barrels and put into two separate holes.

When Maharaj went missing a small ransom had been paid by his family and the FBI from the United States became involved in the investigation. (The Trinidad & Tobago Newsday)

After discovering the mutilated body of Balram Maharaj on Sunday, police in Trinidad have charged three persons in connection with the abduction and murder of 62-year-old Balram Maharaj.

The three suspects are a 37-year-old man from Mayaro South Trinidad, said to be the son of popular calypsonian, a 40-year-old woman of Arima, which is just east of Port of Spain and a 27-year-old man of Lower San Cruz, the area where Maharaj’s body was found buried.

FBI agents working along with local police on Sunday discovered the mutilated body of Maharaj buried in two separate shallow graves and in two styrotex boxes in a forested area off Lower Santa Cruz, northeast of Port of Spain.

Homicide detectives said the body appeared to have been chopped into pieces and later placed into two small plastic barrels before it was buried.

(The Caribbean News)