A Curepe scrap met­al deal­er was among sev­en peo­ple ar­rest­ed when po­lice and of­fi­cers from TSTT's Op­er­a­tional Risk and Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices (ORSS) ex­e­cut­ed a war­rant on the premis­es on Thurs­day morn­ing. A re­lease from TSTT said more than a met­ric ton of its cop­per ca­bles was re­cov­ered dur­ing the ex­er­cise. The sev­en peo­ple were charged un­der the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Act, which al­lows for a max­i­mum penal­ty of five years' im­pris­on­ment or a max­i­mum fine of $250,000, if con­vict­ed.

TSTT's vice-pres­i­dent of ORSS said: "We have every in­ten­tion of keep­ing up the pres­sure on van­dals in this on­go­ing bat­tle against cop­per theft. "This is not on­ly a vic­to­ry in bring­ing a dif­fer­ent lev­el of crim­i­nal–the deal­er–to jus­tice, but a vic­to­ry al­so for the thou­sands of cus­tomers who have the right to feel as­sured that they will not have to suf­fer at the hands of un­scrupu­lous thieves."