An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The head of the An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit, ACP Richard Smith, says one ma­jor gang is be­hind in­ci­dents of ex­tor­tion in Cen­tral and North Cen­tral dis­tricts.

Smith said the gang, which sits on the bor­der of these dis­tricts, is lead­ing in the crime that is be­ing copied in oth­er Caribbean coun­tries.

Speak­ing dur­ing a one-on-one in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, the As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er, Ad­min­is­tra­tion, said the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion has record­ed the high­est num­ber of re­port­ed in­ci­dents of ex­tor­tion with mat­ters cur­rent­ly un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion, now stand­ing at 11.

Fol­low­ing close­ly be­hind was the North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, with ten cas­es be­ing probed. Re­veal­ing these mat­ters had been re­port­ed dur­ing the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 1 to No­vem­ber 1, Smith said the unit cur­rent­ly had 20 ac­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tions on its dock­et.

Be­fore the unit was formed, he said a to­tal of nine ex­tor­tion mat­ters had been solved by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

In the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, Smith said six sta­tion dis­tricts have been im­pact­ed by ex­tor­tion: Ca­roni, Ch­agua­nas, Cunu­pia, Cou­va, Freeport, and Long­denville.

Over in the North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, he said ar­eas like Arou­ca, Pi­ar­co, St Joseph and Tu­na­puna have been im­pact­ed. Smith blamed it on gang ac­tiv­i­ty.

“We be­lieve the gang re­spon­si­ble for it is sit­ting on the bor­der of the Cen­tral and North Cen­tral Di­vi­sions.

“While we might have oth­er per­sons act­ing in­de­pen­dent­ly in some in­stances, we have the in­for­ma­tion that a par­tic­u­lar gang is lead­ing this type of crime, and we are in fact work­ing to­wards dis­man­tling this gang or at least ar­rest­ing per­sons who we find are re­spon­si­ble for com­mit­ting these of­fences.” Smith added, “A lot of these of­fences are be­ing com­mit­ted via phone, but we know the ac­tu­al gang in and of it­self is a big gang that is spread across Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Smith said the sit­u­a­tion was alarm­ing as the il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty was spread­ing to oth­er is­lands. “See­ing some threads of this gang in oth­er Caribbean coun­tries ... copy­cat styling.”

On the is­sue of teenagers and chil­dren as young as eight years old in­volved in ex­tor­tion, Smith said they had not ar­rest­ed any chil­dren thus far in con­nec­tion with any of the re­ports re­ceived so far.

Pro­vid­ing an up­date to his ex­plo­sive an­nounce­ment in Sep­tem­ber that two eight-year-old chil­dren were en­gaged in the ex­tor­tion of a busi­ness­man, Smith said the vic­tim in that case had re­fused to co­op­er­ate any fur­ther.

“We are in fact look­ing to go af­ter the oth­er re­ports, in­ves­ti­gate them thor­ough­ly, and see if we can bring these per­sons to jus­tice.”

The ACP again urged peo­ple to con­tact the AEU at 797-3150 to re­port any threats or at­tempts of ex­tor­tion.

“It is a phe­nom­e­non that’s hap­pen­ing where peo­ple be­lieve they can make easy mon­ey, but call the po­lice and re­port it so we can act.”

The pres­i­dents of the Ch­agua­nas and Cou­va Busi­ness Cham­bers have com­plained their mem­bers are be­ing threat­ened by crim­i­nals to pay mon­ey or be harmed.

The cham­ber of­fi­cials have al­so said some busi­ness peo­ple have opt­ed to close down their busi­ness­es and even mi­grate. Many vic­tims are fear­ful of re­port­ing the crimes to the po­lice.