THE third suspect into police case of the false gold bar sale to former Member of Parliament and Minister of Peace and Reconciliation Hypolite Taremae has been arrested over the weekend.
John Ross was finally arrested last Saturday morning at Sun Valley, East Honiara after he had escaped police and in the hiding.
He was remanded in police custody awaiting his court case with his other two partners Nelson Maeta and Gordon Mark.
Police said five other suspects are still on the run and police is hunting for them.
An officer spoken to said this case was reported by the former MP since 2010.
However police did not do anything about it until last year and this year when they began to follow up again after the former MP continue to follow up on the with police.
That finally resulted in the arrest of the first three suspects of which two have already appeared before the courts.
Solomon Star is aware the former MP was a victim of the con group who sold three false gold bars which he bought for over $300,000.
The officer who wishes to withhold his name said there are other similar cases that police could not investigate further and make arrests since some of the officers are believed to have been corrupt and accepted bribes from these groups of people.
The officer said the group has a network with certain officers who then destroyed evidences of such case making it very difficult to go ahead with the case.
However the arrest of John Ross is seen as a major step into this case since he was the ring leader of the group.
The officer said if officers are doing their work with honesty, this particular case would have been done long time ago.
Meanwhile the former MP has denied reports he had used his constituency’s RCDF to purchase the three false gold bars.
He lost his seat in last week’s election.
By DANIEL NAMOSUAIA
