Watch out ca­ble thieves. The Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of T&T (TSTT), with the use of im­proved sur­veil­lance and de­tec­tion strate­gies, has stepped up in its war against ca­ble rob­bers. So far for the year, TSTT pa­trol of­fi­cers have been able to ar­rest 11 peo­ple who were fined or in de­fault made to face jail. Last week, Ray Toolsie, 23, and Kyle Guy­tan, 19, who were caught steal­ing ca­bles ear­li­er this year were found guilty and fined $5,000 each or in de­fault face nine months' hard labour in jail.

The men were al­so or­dered to pay TSTT $4,200 in com­pen­sa­tion or, in de­fault, serve six weeks' im­pris­on­ment. They were giv­en 28 days to pay the fine and com­pen­sa­tion. Ac­cord­ing to a com­pa­ny re­lease yes­ter­day, TSTT pa­trol of­fi­cers caught Toolsie of School Trace, San­ta Flo­ra, and Guy­tan, of Rivulet Road, Brechin Cas­tle, Cou­va, steal­ing the ca­bles along Mon­de­sir Road in Siparia on Jan­u­ary 18. They were caught with 80 me­tres of ca­ble, val­ued at $8,168. At the Siparia Mag­is­trate's Court last Tues­day, Mag­is­trate Deb­o­rah O'Con­nor charged the men for ma­li­cious dam­age to TSTT ca­bles.

Some 11 peo­ple have been ar­rest­ed for the year and charged with theft of ca­bles and ma­li­cious dam­age to ca­bles, the TSTT re­lease said. "We have re­mained vig­i­lant in man­ag­ing our prob­lems with ca­ble van­dal­ism and we have had to im­prove our sur­veil­lance and de­tec­tion strate­gies to con­tin­ue to stay on top of the sit­u­a­tion," said Den­nis Gor­don, vice-pres­i­dent of TSTT's Or­gan­i­sa­tion Risk and Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices. Gor­don com­mend­ed TSTT pa­trol of­fi­cers and the po­lice for main­tain­ing high ar­rest and con­vic­tion rates for peo­ple caught van­dal­is­ing com­pa­ny prop­er­ty.

TSTT is fur­ther ask­ing any­one with in­for­ma­tion on the per­son/s re­spon­si­ble for van­dal­is­ing a cell­site at San­ta Rosa, Ari­ma, yes­ter­day, to con­tact the Pin­to Road Po­lice Sta­tion. "TSTT per­son­nel were alert­ed to prob­lems at the site when se­cu­ri­ty alarms were trig­gered," the re­lease said. "Up­on in­ves­ti­ga­tion, TSTT per­son­nel found that the fence en­clos­ing the fa­cil­i­ty was cut and ca­bles and equip­ment had been dam­aged to the val­ue of $8,400. "A re­port was made to of­fi­cers of the Pin­to Road Po­lice Sta­tion who are con­duct­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions."