RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A week in­to the State of Emer­gency (SoE), head of the Ex­tor­tion Unit of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Richard Smith, says he and his team are go­ing af­ter 14 ex­tor­tion­ists who have been tar­get­ing busi­ness­peo­ple in North and Cen­tral Trinidad.

This comes as the unit con­tin­ues its in­ves­ti­ga­tions with ten sus­pects al­ready be­hind bars, in­clud­ing a gang leader in Port-of-Spain.

Speak­ing to re­porters fol­low­ing the TTPS In­ter­faith Ser­vice in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, ACP Smith said, “We are us­ing this State of Emer­gency as a strate­gic tool for the TTPS, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Ex­tor­tion Unit.

“Pri­or to the SoE, we ar­rest­ed ten in­di­vid­u­als, in­clud­ing a gang leader in Port-of-Spain. We are con­tin­u­ing our in­ves­ti­ga­tions and ac­tive­ly pur­su­ing ad­di­tion­al tar­gets both dur­ing and af­ter the SoE.”

Smith said the work done so far is al­ready show­ing re­sults, with busi­ness­peo­ple now more will­ing to re­port ex­tor­tion in­ci­dents.

“Busi­ness­peo­ple have start­ed re­gain­ing con­fi­dence in the TTPS and are now com­ing for­ward with re­ports. We have been con­duct­ing sen­si­ti­sa­tion pro­grammes and so­cial me­dia out­reach, and as a re­sult, re­ports to the unit and po­lice sta­tions have in­creased.

“Ini­tial­ly, we had 29 re­ports, but now we have 63. We have a de­tec­tion rate of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30 to 40 per cent for these of­fences.”

He said the ac­tiv­i­ties the unit is in­ves­ti­gat­ing are con­cen­trat­ed pri­mar­i­ly in the North/Cen­tral and Cen­tral Di­vi­sions. Smith ex­plained that the in­creased co­op­er­a­tion from the pub­lic is vi­tal.

“We are work­ing dili­gent­ly to ap­pre­hend the per­pe­tra­tors who are tar­get­ing the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and oth­ers,” he stat­ed.

Asked about the TTPS’ re­sources in the fight against crime, Smith af­firmed the unit has the nec­es­sary sup­port to car­ry out its du­ties, de­spite chal­lenges in cer­tain di­vi­sions.

“Yes, we are ad­e­quate­ly re­sourced. While there are some chal­lenges in cer­tain di­vi­sions, we are work­ing through them,” Smith said.

“It’s day sev­en of the SoE, and we are mak­ing progress. We will con­tin­ue to work through the chal­lenges and push for­ward.”

Smith al­so up­dat­ed the pub­lic on the sta­tus of the ten in­di­vid­u­als ar­rest­ed be­fore the SoE, not­ing they re­main in cus­tody with no bail grant­ed so far.

“We have 14 ad­di­tion­al in­di­vid­u­als on our list, and we are ac­tive­ly pur­su­ing them. These sus­pects are lo­cat­ed across the coun­try and are known to use phones to de­mand mon­ey. We will con­tin­ue to in­ves­ti­gate and take ac­tion un­til we have gath­ered enough ev­i­dence to bring them be­fore the courts,” Smith said.

He ac­knowl­edged the valu­able role of re­tired of­fi­cers. “We re­gard re­tired of­fi­cers as valu­able re­sources be­cause of their ex­pe­ri­ence and ideas,” he said.

“We have called back of­fi­cers from va­ca­tion leave to as­sist dur­ing the SoE, and their con­tri­bu­tion has been in­valu­able.”

He said he and his team are com­mit­ted to bring­ing those re­spon­si­ble for ex­tor­tion to jus­tice and restor­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence in law en­force­ment.