Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

A po­lice of­fi­cer and a Cara­pichaima man have been charged with mul­ti­ple of­fences re­lat­ed to ex­tor­tion.

In the cen­tral di­vi­sion, Naboth By­noe, a 38-year-old po­lice of­fi­cer, ap­peared be­fore judge In­di­ra Chinebas at the Cou­va Mas­ter’s Court on Thurs­day. He was charged with two counts of de­mand­ing mon­ey by men­ace, kid­nap­ping, rob­bery, and one count of lar­ce­ny. He was grant­ed bail with sure­ty in the sum of $650,000.

The TTPS said the charges stemmed from two sep­a­rate re­ports.

In the first in­stance, a 39-year-old vic­tim arranged to meet some­one with whom he had been com­mu­ni­cat­ing on In­sta­gram be­tween Jan­u­ary and March 2025. At the agreed lo­ca­tion—a phar­ma­cy carpark in Cou­va—the vic­tim was seat­ed in his ve­hi­cle when a man, dressed in dark cloth­ing, a hat, and wear­ing a med­ical face mask, knocked on his win­dow. The man pro­duced what ap­peared to be a TTPS iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card and claimed to be at­tached to the Cou­va Po­lice Sta­tion.

He or­dered the vic­tim in­to the pas­sen­ger seat and drove to a car park near the Cou­va Health Fa­cil­i­ty. The sus­pect ac­cused the vic­tim of com­mu­ni­cat­ing with some­one who was un­der­age. He fur­ther claimed that the per­son he had been com­mu­ni­cat­ing with was trau­ma­tised and had to seek coun­selling in the sum of $30,000. The sus­pect sug­gest­ed that the mat­ter could be re­solved if coun­selling fee was re­paid, with him act­ing on be­half of the of the al­leged trau­ma­tised per­son.

The vic­tim in­di­cat­ed he on­ly had $5,000, and the sus­pect drove him to a bank, where he with­drew and hand­ed over the mon­ey. The sus­pect told the vic­tim he would be con­tact­ed lat­er for the bal­ance be­fore leav­ing on foot.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions re­sult­ed in the ar­rest of Po­lice Con­sta­ble By­noe of Freeport, who was on sus­pen­sion at the time. He was charged on Mon­day.

In the sec­ond in­ci­dent, on Feb­ru­ary 17, the sec­ond vic­tim was again parked at the same lo­ca­tion when he was ap­proached by a man wear­ing a blue po­lo shirt with a print­ed TTPS lo­go. The man pro­duced what ap­peared to be a TTPS ID card and in­tro­duced him­self. He ac­cused the vic­tim of at­tempt­ing to meet an un­der­age per­son and in­struct­ed him to place his mo­bile phone on the dash­board and move to the pas­sen­ger seat.

The sus­pect en­tered the dri­ver’s seat and drove the vic­tim to an­oth­er carpark near the Cou­va Health Fa­cil­i­ty, against the vic­tim’s will. He de­mand­ed $100,000 to for­go pros­e­cu­tion and seized the vic­tim’s phone, us­ing it to at­tempt a with­draw­al of $300 via a cash­less app. He al­so took the phone—val­ued at $180 USD—be­fore ex­it­ing the ve­hi­cle and leav­ing on foot. The vic­tim lat­er re­ceived an email in­di­cat­ing the trans­ac­tion was un­suc­cess­ful.

Ad­di­tion­al charges were laid against By­noe last Mon­day. A State at­tor­ney is ex­pect­ed to be ap­point­ed to the mat­ter.

Mean­while, in the south­ern di­vi­sion, a 43-year-old man from Or­ange­field Road, Cara­pichaima, was grant­ed bail in the sum of $200,000 with sure­ty last Fri­day. He is re­quired to re­port to the Freeport Po­lice Sta­tion twice per week and must have no con­tact—di­rect or in­di­rect—with the vic­tim.

The charge arose from an in­ci­dent on Feb­ru­ary 24 around 6.45 pm, at a farm in Bar­rack­pore. The vic­tim, a 46-year-old busi­ness­man and farm pro­pri­etor, re­port­ed that a man ex­it­ed a black Nis­san X-Trail and is­sued a threat, de­mand­ing $30,000 for the con­tin­ued op­er­a­tion of his busi­ness. The sus­pect al­leged­ly warned that fail­ure to pay would re­sult in harm.

Fol­low­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions, the sus­pect was ar­rest­ed on April 22. The TTPS said it was treat­ing cas­es of ex­tor­tion very se­ri­ous­ly.