Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents of Cunu­pia and sur­round­ing ar­eas are gripped by fear as cas­es of ex­tor­tion and rob­bery con­tin­ue to rise.

Sev­er­al res­i­dents and busi­ness­es have re­port­ed re­ceiv­ing calls de­mand­ing pay­ment for pro­tec­tion. More than 100 busi­ness­es have been tar­get­ed by ex­tor­tion­ists, and some busi­ness own­ers are plan­ning to shut down and even mi­grate.

Cunu­pia Busi­ness Cham­ber vice pres­i­dent Ryan De Cas­tro yes­ter­day said the group is deeply con­cerned about the re­cent surge in re­ports of ex­tor­tion.

“We stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the af­fect­ed busi­ness­es and their em­ploy­ees dur­ing this chal­leng­ing time,” he said.

“As a re­al es­tate bro­ker, I have per­son­al­ly wit­nessed for­eign in­vestors redi­rect­ing their in­vest­ments to oth­er coun­tries due to con­cerns about crime, par­tic­u­lar­ly ex­tor­tion in Cunu­pia. This is a mat­ter of great con­cern, as se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ty are para­mount for at­tract­ing and re­tain­ing for­eign in­vest­ment.”

De Cas­tro said the crim­i­nals ap­pear to be more or­gan­ised and pose a sig­nif­i­cant threat to the cham­ber mem­bers and their fam­i­lies.

“In re­sponse, we have pro­posed in­creas­ing our re­sources to pro­vide en­hanced sup­port and as­sis­tance to our mem­bers, fo­cus­ing not on­ly on the se­cu­ri­ty of their busi­ness­es but al­so on the safe­ty of their fam­i­lies. To­geth­er, we can cre­ate a safer and more se­cure busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment that at­tracts and re­tains in­vest­ment, fos­ter­ing eco­nom­ic growth and de­vel­op­ment in Cunu­pia,” he said.

Busi­ness groups have met with the Ex­tor­tion and Home In­va­sion Unit of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice to dis­cuss the sit­u­a­tion.

A res­i­dent, who spoke anony­mous­ly, said crime has changed the way of life in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“Just yes­ter­day, they tried to break in­to a lot­to booth near­by. A lit­tle over a week ago, a man was kid­napped. The sit­u­a­tion is ter­ri­ble,” he said.

“We hard­ly see any po­lice pa­trolling, and that’s very con­cern­ing. Peo­ple are scared to come out any­more. Those who used to wake up ear­ly and start their day don’t do that any­more. His­tor­i­cal­ly, peo­ple around here would be up ear­ly, open­ing their homes, but now no one does that. It’s that bad.”

Head of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent Mukesh Dipc­hand, told Guardian Me­dia that cas­es are now be­ing sent to the new Ex­tor­tion and Home In­va­sion Unit and there have been ar­rests and the lay­ing of ex­tor­tion charges in the Fred­er­ick Set­tle­ment, Ca­roni area.

Mean­while, Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly said busi­ness own­ers have reached out to him about their trou­bling ex­pe­ri­ences.

“One in­ci­dent that re­al­ly struck me in­volved a busi­ness own­er re­ceiv­ing a phone call where the caller said they knew where the own­er’s chil­dren were and where they had tak­en them for the week­end. The call was es­sen­tial­ly de­mand­ing a ran­som,” he said.

“Some busi­ness own­ers are con­sid­er­ing clos­ing down or re­lo­cat­ing be­cause they fear be­ing tar­get­ed, even af­ter shut­ting their doors. Not every­one has the means to leave the coun­try, but I’ve heard that some of the wealth­i­er busi­ness peo­ple are send­ing their fam­i­lies abroad for safe­ty.

“While I can’t pro­vide spe­cif­ic sta­tis­tics, I can tell you that the num­ber of peo­ple af­fect­ed is grow­ing, and I’ve been in touch with sev­er­al of them.”

Ram­bal­ly, who ap­pealed to politi­cians to join forces to tack­le crime head-on, added, “We need to come to­geth­er and set aside pol­i­tics, at least when it comes to ad­dress­ing crime. We can de­bate and ar­gue about every­thing else, but let’s call a cease­fire on this is­sue un­til De­cem­ber and fo­cus on get­ting ahead of the crim­i­nal el­e­ments.”