Kevon Felmine

South-west­ern po­lice are on the look­out for pos­si­ble mi­gra­tion of crim­i­nals from hot spots in­to ar­eas not cov­ered by the cur­few. A se­nior of­fi­cer said since Jan­u­ary they have ar­rest­ed sev­er­al peo­ple who re­side out­side the area for var­i­ous crimes. He said be­cause south-west­ern may have less crime due to the cur­few, there may be an in­flux of crim­i­nals in­to the area. "We have sig­nif­i­cant­ly cleaned up some of the no­to­ri­ous crim­i­nals in the area but what we are do­ing now is con­cen­trat­ing on mi­gra­tion," the of­fi­cer said. "What we may see here is crim­i­nal mov­ing from the hot spots in­to the peace­ful and qui­et ar­eas, so we have set up a net­work with oth­er di­vi­sions to bring about an over­haul of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

"Since the be­gin­ning of the year, we have en­gaged in a num­ber of an­ti-crime op­er­a­tions which have sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duced the num­ber of crim­i­nal el­e­ments in the di­vi­sion." He said the state of emer­gency has al­lowed them to fur­ther clean up the di­vi­sion. South-west­ern di­vi­sion of­fi­cers, un­der the su­per­vi­sion of In­sp Seedarie, set up road­blocks and car­ried out house search­es from Wednes­day night in­to yes­ter­day morn­ing. The of­fi­cers con­duct­ed op­er­a­tions at strate­gic points in which 19 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed for a var­i­ous of­fences. Un­der Sgt Jones in the Point Fortin dis­trict, eight peo­ple were ar­rest­ed.

In Pe­nal, a team of of­fi­cers led by Sgt Dou­glas de­tained five peo­ple and un­der Sgt Sookraj in Siparia, six were held.

Ar­rests were made for pos­ses­sion of co­caine and mar­i­jua­na, rob­beries and break-ins. Peo­ple be­lieved to be in­volved in gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties were al­so ar­rest­ed. Po­lice in the south­ern di­vi­sion ex­e­cut­ed war­rant ex­er­cis­es in which eight peo­ple were ar­rest­ed in Gas­par­il­lo and 11 in San Fer­nan­do. A few sus­pects, who were said to be well-known gang mem­bers, were picked up in Princes Town.Short­ly af­ter mid­day on Mon­day, Siparia po­lice on mo­bile pa­trol ar­rest­ed two men who they caught steal­ing iron from a prop­er­ty owned by T&TEC.