An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

A Point Fortin cou­ple was ar­rest­ed dur­ing a sting op­er­a­tion on Fri­day, af­ter of­fi­cers re­ceived a re­port from the own­er of a con­struc­tion com­pa­ny that he was be­ing ex­tort­ed un­der threat that his fam­i­ly would be harmed.

Of­fi­cers from the An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit (AEU) had been car­ry­ing out in­ves­ti­ga­tions over a pe­ri­od of time be­fore they ar­rest­ed a 27-year-old woman and a 38-year-old man, of Spring Trace, War­den Road, Point Fortin.

This, af­ter the vic­tim hand­ed over an undis­closed sum of cash to the woman, fol­low­ing the lat­est threat that his car would be burnt if he failed to pay them.

Dubbed “Op­er­a­tion Strike Point,” he in­tel­li­gence-led ex­er­cise was con­duct­ed by mem­bers of the AEU; the Na­tion­al Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Unit (NSOU) and the Air Sup­port Unit (ASU).

It was spear­head­ed by As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Michael Pierre, co­or­di­nat­ed by Sgt Bac­chus, and su­per­vised by Cpls Baksh and Ram­per­sad.

Re­ports in­di­cate that the cou­ple de­mand­ed mon­ey by men­ace af­ter they or­dered the vic­tim to pay $10,000.

Fol­low­ing the threat, the vic­tim re­port­ed­ly got the cash and agreed to meet the woman at a su­per­mar­ket car park along the Point Fortin Main Road.

It was claimed the vic­tim was seat­ed in his ve­hi­cle when the woman ap­proached him, in­di­cat­ing she was there to col­lect the mon­ey, fol­low­ing which the vic­tim hand­ed over the en­ve­lope.

As the woman took it and walked away, un­der­cov­er of­fi­cers ar­rest­ed her and re­trieved the cash.

Her male com­pan­ion was lat­er ar­rest­ed at home.

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials com­mend­ed the of­fi­cers of the AEU, as they said the re­ports com­ing in to them on such in­ci­dents have con­tin­ued to in­crease.

With a 49 per cent de­tec­tion rate un­der its belt, of­fi­cials said the AEU was al­so in­ves­ti­gat­ing re­ports where per­sons were so­lic­it­ing for mur­der.

In one in­stance, two per­sons were charged af­ter they were al­leged­ly hired to kill six peo­ple who were al­leged­ly em­ployed with a com­peti­tor busi­ness.

And in a sec­ond in­ci­dent sev­er­al months ago, one man was killed and an­oth­er ar­rest­ed fol­low­ing a con­fronta­tion with po­lice of­fi­cers, af­ter they at­tempt­ed to ar­rest them.

It was re­port­ed that the sus­pects had been hired to kill a woman, who had bro­ken off a re­la­tion­ship, and her new boyfriend.

Asked to say if this was a new and emerg­ing trend, the of­fi­cial said, “It is com­ing to the fore, more now, as per­sons are re­port­ing it. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t hap­pen­ing all the time.”