Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

A Cunu­pia busi­ness­woman is now sell­ing her spa and says she will be re­lo­cat­ing af­ter re­peat­ed­ly be­ing tar­get­ed by ex­tor­tion­ists for $30,000. Malai­ka Gar­raway, the own­er of Ar­ray Mas­sages and Mas­sage Train­ing, is speak­ing out about the con­stant threats she has been fac­ing.

Gar­raway told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that the gang­sters threat­ened her teenage son and her moth­er’s life. She said this was the straw that prover­bial­ly broke the camel’s back.

The busi­ness­woman said two voice notes were sent threat­en­ing her and her fam­i­ly af­ter a man showed up at her Mon­trose busi­ness place de­mand­ing the mon­ey last week.

“Malai­ka, what go­ing on with the $30,000 girl? Like we have to pay you a vis­it again or what? Next time we come back there, we not com­ing to talk, in­no,” the man said in a voice note.

In an­oth­er voice mes­sage sent, the man said, “We al­ready know where yuh son go­ing to school al­ready, in­no, and we know where yuh moth­er stay­ing, so doh let it have to reach to that with we nah boy. Bet­ter yuh just or­gan­ise $30,000 for we.”

Gar­raway said the de­mands be­gan in Jan­u­ary and have con­tin­ued. She ex­plained there was a break-in at her busi­ness place on Mon­day, her son was fol­lowed on his way to school, she was robbed twice, and now the threat­en­ing de­mands have all forced her to leave Cunu­pia.

“I was al­ready robbed three times, it’s a lot that prompt­ed me to close, well, to sell. It’s like hav­ing a busi­ness in Cunu­pia or Cen­tral makes you a tar­get for these crazy peo­ple.”

Gar­raway said just last week a man vis­it­ed her busi­ness, mak­ing a de­mand for mon­ey. Af­ter mov­ing from Port-of-Spain to Cunu­pia over a decade ago, the 37-year-old said in re­cent times the com­mu­ni­ty changed from a qui­et area to the “ex­tor­tion cap­i­tal.”

“I came to Cunu­pia be­cause it is very qui­et, but in these last few years, two years ... it is very shock­ing to me that it has be­come this great ex­tor­tion cap­i­tal.”

Head of the new­ly formed An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit, ACP Richard Smith said the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion has the high­est re­ports of ex­tor­tion in the coun­try, with 11 ac­tive cas­es for the year.

On Mon­day, a Ch­agua­nas man was the first per­son charged by the re­cent­ly formed unit for de­mand­ing mon­ey by men­ace, the le­gal term for ex­tor­tion.