The family of Claude Alvin Benjamin want their father's vehicle returned from retired sergeant Mervyn Cordner, who claimed to head the New Flying Squad Investigation Unit (NFSIU).

A relative told the Sunday Express that Benjamin, who died earlier this month, had purchased the black TCX -registered Toyota vehicle for Cordner to assist him in his fight against crime.

The relative said Cordner had told Benjamin he was working closely in the fight against crime with National Security Minister Jack Warner.

Cordner has claimed that Warner had given approval to head the NFSIU and he claimed to hire some 75 workers and to lease a property for $200,000 a month at his own expense.

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has referred the matter for investigation and it is now in the hands of acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams.

The Sunday Express understands Benjamin was introduced to Cordner in October last year.

Shortly after that, he purchased the vehicle from Maska South Motors for $350,000 in cash.

However, he never put the vehicle in Cordner's name but kept it in his own name.

The Sunday Express obtained a copy of the cheque which Benjamin wrote out for the vehicle from the family. A registration of the vehicle, obtained from the Licencing Office last week, has the vehicle registered to Benjamin as well as the insurance cover.

The family said they've not reclaimed the vehicle as they were wary given Cordner's public statements and did not want to drag their father's name and company through the mud.

Several of the men Cordner recruited for the NFSIU told the Sunday Express that Cordner boasted that the vehicle was given to him by Minister Warner to show his confidence in the Unit.

Former Flying Squad member Eugene Granger also said recently that his former colleague Cordner had questions to answer.

Granger, who retired from the Police Service as a corporal in 1986, told the Sunday Express in a recent interview at his Belmont-based mini-mart he had been following the news on the NFSIU and was concerned that the public had put their belief in Cordner's statements. 

"He's recently returned to T&T and is now very out of touch with the streets of T&T and how the underworld operates. Crime has taken a whole new level of sophistication and methods of the past won't work now," Granger said of Cordner.