Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt 

For five days, 26-year-old An­isha Ho­sein-Singh was in the hands of kid­nap­pers.

 The El Do­ra­do ven­dor was snatched from her dou­bles stand ear­ly on the morn­ing of May 18 by gun­men who shot her hus­band in their bid to es­cape.

 As po­lice from var­i­ous units in­ves­ti­gat­ed Ho­sein-Singh’s ab­duc­tion, it was re­port­ed that an undis­closed ran­som was de­mand­ed by the kid­nap­pers; It is un­clear whether any ran­som was paid for her re­lease. Ho­sein-Singh was found wan­der­ing in the Ca­roni area on Wednes­day night. She was de­scribed by the po­lice as be­ing un­harmed and in good health.

 In the ear­ly 2000s, kid­nap­pings for ran­som were ram­pant in T&T, prompt­ing then na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Mar­tin Joseph to agree with calls for kid­nap­pers to face the death penal­ty. In a 2007 in­ter­view, Joseph de­scribed kid­nap­ping as a “most hor­rif­ic crime.”

 How­ev­er, af­ter a pe­ri­od of de­cline, there are fears that more re­source­ful, brazen crim­i­nals have turned their at­ten­tion to le­git­i­mate and il­le­git­i­mate busi­ness peo­ple.

 With in­creas­ing crime in the coun­try–from brazen killings in pub­lic spaces and at peo­ple’s homes in broad day­light and night, and vi­o­lent home in­va­sions, rapes, and rob­beries–Ho­sein-Singh’s ab­duc­tion has sparked fears of a resur­gence of kid­nap­ping for ran­som, a crime that was no­tice­ably high in T&T from the 1990s through the ear­ly 2000s.

 A 2016 study by crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad re­port­ed that there were 9.8 kid­nap­pings per 100,000 in­hab­i­tants in Trinidad be­tween 1990 and 2013. The re­port stat­ed that T&T record­ed the high­est num­ber of kid­nap­pings in 2005, with 280 for that year. How­ev­er, the num­ber con­tin­ued to de­crease af­ter 2005.

 The study re­vealed that be­tween 1997 and 2013, there were 2,778 kid­nap­pings, with 257 be­ing for ran­som. In 2005, there were 58 kid­nap­pings for ran­som, the high­est num­ber on record at that time. The num­ber of kid­nap­pings for ran­som con­tin­ued to drop, with less than ten per year af­ter 2008.

This drop in the num­ber of kid­nap­pings for ran­som has been at­trib­uted to a con­cert­ed ef­fort to dis­man­tle or­gan­ised crime groups in­volved, lead­ing to the im­pris­on­ment of some main crime fig­ures.  

Be­tween 2017 and 2024, there have been nine re­port­ed kid­nap­pings for ran­som; all of the vic­tims in these cas­es were found alive. Dur­ing this pe­ri­od, at least 21 sus­pects were charged.

  Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to speak with the head of the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit (AKU), through the TTPS Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit, but was told that he was “very en­gaged” in the kid­nap­ping in­ves­ti­ga­tion of Ho­sein-Singh.

 The AKU, which has re­ceived train­ing from the FBI over the past two decades, is the main agency in­volved in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of kid­nap­pings.

An­ti-crime brief­ing pro­ject­ed an in­crease in kid­nap­pings for ran­som

Be­tween late 2023 and 2024, there have been at least three kid­nap­pings. Po­lice in­tel­li­gence sources said an an­ti-crime brief­ing in March pro­ject­ed an in­crease in kid­nap­pings for ran­som this year, and it is be­lieved that will con­tin­ue for some time af­ter 2024.

 This brief­ing, the source said, al­so out­lined the in­volve­ment of or­gan­ised crime el­e­ments in what he de­scribed as a “lu­cra­tive” crim­i­nal en­ter­prise.

 Ac­cord­ing to da­ta com­piled by the po­lice Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis (CA­PA) branch, be­tween Jan­u­ary and May of this year, there has on­ly been one con­firmed kid­nap­ping for ran­som in the East­ern Di­vi­sion.

 How­ev­er, the source said that may not be an ac­cu­rate re­flec­tion of kid­nap­ping cas­es, as sev­er­al in­ci­dents are be­lieved to go un­re­port­ed, pos­si­bly be­cause the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies are too afraid while some are in­volved in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties.

He added that po­lice in­tel­li­gence sug­gest­ed that kid­nap­pers were tar­get­ing peo­ple typ­i­cal­ly in­volved in mon­ey laun­der­ing or oth­er il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties in­volv­ing large sums of cash, as they were the ones most like­ly to have ac­cess to mon­ey for a ran­som pay­ment with­out alert­ing the po­lice.

“This all ties back to the hes­i­tance to alert the po­lice or co­op­er­ate with of­fi­cers who are in­ves­ti­gat­ing. They won’t tell us the full sto­ry, as they know some crim­i­nal as­pects will be re­vealed. A lot of times the kid­nap­pers are very aware of what­ev­er ac­tiv­i­ties the vic­tim’s fam­i­lies are in­volved in.”

 The source re­ferred to an in­ci­dent where fam­i­ly mem­bers of a re­cent kid­nap vic­tim were re­luc­tant to pro­vide the con­tact num­bers of oth­er rel­a­tives to the po­lice Cy­ber Crime Unit to as­sist in in­quiries.

The suc­cess of some kid­nap­pings has led to or­gan­ised crime groups be­ing drawn in­to the prac­tice.

 The un­will­ing­ness to in­volve the po­lice has made it dif­fi­cult for in­ves­ti­ga­tors to de­tect trends and fo­cus on which crim­i­nal net­works are now part of the re­cent wave of ab­duc­tions, re­sort­ing to the po­lice us­ing “street-lev­el” in­tel­li­gence from in­for­mants and oth­er sources. 

 Re­fer­ring to an in­ci­dent in cen­tral Trinidad in No­vem­ber 2023 where a busi­ness­man’s daugh­ter was re­port­ed­ly kid­napped, the of­fi­cer said while in­ves­ti­ga­tors could not con­firm this with the busi­ness­man, sev­er­al un­der­world fig­ures in­sist­ed the girl was re­leased af­ter a $200,000 ran­som was paid, hours af­ter her ab­duc­tion.

Ran­soms at­tract gangs seek­ing quick cash 

One trend high­light­ed in the crime brief­ing ear­li­er this year, a po­lice source said, was the in­volve­ment of gangs in kid­nap­ping.

While in the past gangs would sim­ply pro­vide the ve­hi­cle or guns to oth­er groups to car­ry out a kid­nap­ping, the gang mem­bers them­selves are now be­com­ing part of the trend.

 He said that while a suc­cess­ful kid­nap­ping re­quired ex­ten­sive re­search and prepa­ra­tion, it was a rel­a­tive­ly cheap crime to com­mit. Most of the ve­hi­cles used as get­away cars, sources said, are stolen months in ad­vance of a kid­nap­ping.

 Guns and po­lice or mil­i­tary uni­forms, he added, have be­come rel­a­tive­ly easy to ac­cess from with­in gangs.

 “There are typ­i­cal­ly on­ly three peo­ple in­volved in an ac­tu­al kid­nap­ping: two gun­men dressed in po­lice or army uni­forms and the dri­ver. From that point, at the lo­ca­tion you choose to hide the per­son, there are oth­er peo­ple on stand­by to keep watch and en­sure they aren’t try­ing to es­cape.”

 The in­volve­ment of gangs in kid­nap­ping is not a new phe­nom­e­non, as Dex­ter Matthews, alias “Apache”, was gunned down at a hide­out in Princes Town in Jan­u­ary 2003.
Matthews was re­port­ed­ly a key sus­pect in sev­er­al of the coun­try’s high-pro­file kid­nap­pings. He was al­so linked to sev­er­al oth­er crimes, in­clud­ing mur­der.

 How­ev­er, his mur­der was at­trib­uted to a gang war in Laven­tille at the time.

Kid­nap­pings too un­pre­dictable

In the case of gang war­fare, the po­lice can pre­dict whether there will be reprisals for a par­tic­u­lar mur­der and who the like­ly vic­tims or sus­pects will be. 

 This al­lows for plan­ning and pre­ven­tion strate­gies through pa­trols or tar­get­ed search­es; how­ev­er, the na­ture of kid­nap­pings does not give hints on when or where they would hap­pen.

 “There are tens of thou­sands of busi­ness­peo­ple in Trinidad, all of whom have fam­i­lies of their own. It’s im­pos­si­ble to tell when a kid­nap­ping will hap­pen or who may be re­spon­si­ble, es­pe­cial­ly in sit­u­a­tions where rel­a­tives of the vic­tim are not be­ing up­front with every­thing they know,” po­lice sources said.

 In ad­di­tion to po­lice sources be­ing de­ployed to help find An­isha Ho­sein-Singh, pri­vate cit­i­zens, in­clud­ing sev­er­al search and res­cue or­gan­i­sa­tions, al­so vol­un­teered in the search.

 But even with this as­sis­tance, find­ing the vic­tims af­ter their ab­duc­tion re­mains a chal­lenge for the au­thor­i­ties. 

 The source said that vic­tims are typ­i­cal­ly hid­den in re­mote, rur­al ar­eas where there is a sig­nif­i­cant dis­tance be­tween neigh­bour­ing prop­er­ties. 

 To ef­fec­tive­ly re­spond to kid­nap­pings, one po­lice of­fi­cer said a more in­clu­sive use of tech­nol­o­gy was need­ed.

 While he was re­luc­tant to dis­close what equip­ment the po­lice Cy­ber Crime Unit had at their dis­pos­al, he re­port­ed that se­cu­ri­ty cam­era footage led to the dis­cov­ery of the sil­ver Nis­san B13 that was used in Ho­sein-Singh’s kid­nap­ping.

 He said it was like­ly the kid­nap­pers, with Ho­sein-Singh in tow, aban­doned the ve­hi­cle there and switched to an­oth­er car or ven­tured to a hide­out on foot.

How­ev­er, last week, head of the Spe­cialised Sup­port Di­vi­sion­ACP Wayne Mys­tar, ad­dress­ing Hosien-Singh’s kid­nap­ping on a ra­dio show, said there was a need to im­prove the CCTV cam­era sys­tem in the coun­try that can be used to ad­dress crime. Mys­tar al­so said one of the chal­lenges fac­ing the po­lice was wit­ness­es reneg­ing af­ter giv­ing state­ments. He added that the “re­volv­ing door” of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, where peo­ple come out of prison with a “big­ger and bet­ter way to con­tin­ue to com­mit crime,” is an­oth­er chal­lenge. 

Asked about the use of drones and he­li­copters, Mys­tar said the po­lice have an aer­i­al sup­port unit us­ing drones but lament­ed that in cas­es of kid­nap­pings and car thefts, he­li­copters may be need­ed. 

“He­li­copters def­i­nite­ly is one of the re­sources nec­es­sary to as­sist us with what is hap­pen­ing; kid­nap­pings and stolen ve­hi­cles.” 

He called on the pop­u­la­tion to part­ner with the po­lice.

‘The blimp was use­ful’

 One re­tired of­fi­cer who spoke with Guardian Me­dia on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty re­called a kid­nap­ping for ran­som in 1997, where a man was snatched from his home in south Trinidad.

 He said the man was tricked by kid­nap­pers in­to think­ing he was tak­en to Venezuela but was kept at a board­ed-up house in west Trinidad, where his cap­tors re­port­ed­ly played Span­ish mu­sic to de­ceive him un­til his re­lease.

 The for­mer se­nior of­fi­cer said de­spite the ridicule it at­tract­ed, the air­ship or blimp used by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty was an ef­fec­tive tool in sur­veil­lance and find­ing hide­outs, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the dense forests of the North­ern Range. 

 “It (the blimp) was ide­al for sur­veil­lance as it al­lowed for a wider range to be cov­ered, es­pe­cial­ly with the type of equip­ment it car­ried.

 “He­li­copters typ­i­cal­ly have a more lim­it­ed range and can on­ly re­main air­borne for so long, but the air­ship was more ro­bust in how long it could con­tin­ue work, notwith­stand­ing the fact it was not the most sub­tle piece of ma­chin­ery.”

 The of­fi­cer, how­ev­er, was un­able to say how ef­fec­tive the blimp was in as­sist­ing in the res­cue of kid­nap vic­tims dur­ing the pe­ri­od it was op­er­a­tional.

 While the iden­ti­ties of kid­nap­pers re­main un­known for most of the time, po­lice said sit­u­a­tions where a ran­som is de­mand­ed open a win­dow where cash can be ex­changed, per­haps al­low­ing for an ar­rest to be made.

In the case of Ane­sha Nar­ine-Bood­hoo, who was snatched from her El So­cor­ro busi­ness place in De­cem­ber 2023, one of the sus­pects, Stephen Aaron Spann, was ar­rest­ed for al­leged­ly ne­go­ti­at­ing a ran­som for her re­lease.

 In the 2017 kid­nap­ping of San Fer­nan­do busi­ness­man Gre­go­ry Laing, a Laven­tille man was ar­rest­ed for hav­ing a por­tion of ran­som mon­ey.

 Po­lice said sim­ply ar­rang­ing a trap us­ing ran­som mon­ey as bait may be too risky, es­pe­cial­ly with the vic­tim’s life hang­ing in the bal­ance.

 “It’s a very tricky sit­u­a­tion be­cause if an ar­rest is ef­fect­ed and word gets back to the oth­er kid­nap­pers, we may have a dead vic­tim on our hands. It’s some­thing that re­quires a lot of thought on how to ap­proach.”

(BOX) 

Cas­es of kid­nap­ping for ran­som

• In June 2004, then three-year-old Saa­da Singh was kid­napped from the Giselle Montes­sori Preschool she at­tend­ed in Vista­bel­la. Po­lice lat­er charged Singh’s preschool teacher Kim­ber­ly Moon­sam­my, her cousin Jonathan Moon­sam­my, Colleen Os­bourne and Ke­ston Franklin for the kid­nap­ping. 

• Al­so in June 2004, ten-year-old Vi­jay Per­sad was snatched from his fam­i­ly’s In­di­an Walk, Moru­ga, home. A ran­som of $300,000 was de­mand­ed for Per­sad’s safe re­lease.

 How­ev­er, Per­sad was nev­er re­leased, and his fate as of 2024 re­mains un­known.

• In De­cem­ber 2004, busi­ness­man Dex­ter Jagdeo was kid­napped by four men pos­ing as po­lice of­fi­cers. A $2.5 mil­lion ran­som was de­mand­ed for Jagdeo’s safe re­lease. He was re­leased when the ran­som was paid.

• Al­so in De­cem­ber 2004, Am­ri­ka Praim­s­ingh, then 15 years old, was snatched from the carpark of Trinci­ty Mall. A ran­som of $100,000 was de­mand­ed for her safe re­lease.

 Praim­s­ingh was re­leased at Mar­itime Plaza, Barataria, af­ter part of the ran­som was paid.

• In Ju­ly 2005, re­al es­tate agent Ger­ald Gopaul was kid­napped from Di­a­mond Vil­lage, south Trinidad. Gopaul’s body was found days lat­er at Tantrail Road, St Au­gus­tine.

• In De­cem­ber 2006, X-Tra Foods CEO Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man was ab­duct­ed.

 A $122,000 ran­som was re­port­ed­ly paid; how­ev­er, Naipaul-Cool­man was mur­dered, and her dis­mem­bered re­mains were dis­posed of at sea, nev­er to be found.

 In 2014, the tri­al of 12 men ac­cused of her kid­nap­ping and mur­der be­gan. How­ev­er, in 2016, nine of the orig­i­nal 12 men were ac­quit­ted. It was re­port­ed in 2023 that each of the for­mer ac­cused will re­ceive $2.1 mil­lion in dam­ages for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion. 

• In April 2011, Chi­nese restau­rant own­er Xue Hua Shan was am­bushed out­side her Barataria home and kid­napped. One day af­ter her ab­duc­tion, rel­a­tives re­port­ed re­ceiv­ing a ran­som de­mand of $4 mil­lion for her re­lease. Po­lice be­lieve Shan was mur­dered by her cap­tors but ad­mit­ted there is no con­clu­sive ev­i­dence to sug­gest whether she is alive or dead.

• In April 2012, an­oth­er Chi­nese busi­ness­man, Ken­neth Lou, was kid­napped while mak­ing de­liv­er­ies in Clax­ton Bay. His fam­i­ly was con­tact­ed hours af­ter the ab­duc­tion, and a $200,000 ran­som was de­mand­ed. He was lat­er re­leased in Pi­ar­co.

• In June 2017, busi­ness­man Gre­go­ry Laing was kid­napped from his Puff and Stuff Bak­ery on Cir­cu­lar Road, San Fer­nan­do. It was re­port­ed that a ran­som of $270,000 was de­mand­ed for his safe re­turn. Laing was lat­er re­leased and found on the Beetham High­way. Short­ly af­ter, Jester Su­perville, of Pic­ton Road, Laven­tille, was charged for hav­ing $2,500, which was al­leged­ly part of the ran­som. A sec­ond man, Quin­cy Flatts, was al­so charged with ne­go­ti­at­ing a ran­som.

• In Ju­ly 2017, Zhang Sai­ju, a work­er em­ployed with the Chi­nese Em­bassy in T&T was kid­napped while walk­ing to work in St Clair. The kid­nap­per lat­er called the em­bassy and de­mand­ed a $20,000 ran­som for Sai­ju’s safe re­lease. How­ev­er, po­lice from var­i­ous units used GPS to find the kid­nap­per and Sai­ju on Damien Street, near the Roxy Round­about. Kwasi Bowen was charged with the kid­nap­ping.

• In Sep­tem­ber 2017, then 14-year-old Bran­don Sam was kid­napped from his San­gre Grande home. A 16-year-old rel­a­tive who at the time claimed to have been re­leased by the cap­tors said a $350,000 ran­som was de­mand­ed. Five men, two of whom were Bran­don’s un­cles, were lat­er charged with the kid­nap­ping.

• In Sep­tem­ber 2018, Na­tal­ie Pol­lon­ais was kid­napped as she left the C3 com­plex.

 She was res­cued at a house in El So­cor­ro four days af­ter the ab­duc­tion. SRP Ian Dwari­ka, PC Shaun­dell Eu­in, and Gre­go­ry James were charged with her kid­nap­ping.

• In No­vem­ber 2018, Maria Dass-Su­per­sad was kid­napped from her work­place on the UWI St Au­gus­tine cam­pus. She was lat­er res­cued by po­lice in a for­est hide­out in Cau­ra. Two men, Ri­car­do Fe­lix and Keon Phillips, were charged with kid­nap­ping for ran­som and pos­ses­sion of a gun and am­mu­ni­tion. 

• In Jan­u­ary 2022, Nar­ine Maraj and his wife, Mat­tie Maraj, were kid­napped when they left their Madras Road, St He­le­na, home to go to a par­cel of land in Pi­ar­co. A ran­som of $2 mil­lion was de­mand­ed. Maraj es­caped, while his wife was found two days lat­er on the Cumaca Road in Va­len­cia. Po­lice lat­er con­firmed that nine peo­ple were ar­rest­ed for the kid­nap­ping.

 • In Sep­tem­ber 2023, Pa­t­ri­na Her­nan­dez and her daugh­ter Amelia Roberts were kid­napped from their An­dalu­sia Dri­ve, Mar­aval, home. Hours lat­er that same day, both women were re­leased by their cap­tors on the La­dy Young Road in Mor­vant.

 It is un­clear whether a ran­som was de­mand­ed or paid for their re­lease. 

• On De­cem­ber 29, 2023, Ane­sha Nar­ine-Bood­hoo was snatched from her El So­cor­ro busi­ness by two men dressed in po­lice uni­forms. She was re­leased on Jan­u­ary 2.

Two men, Stephen Aaron Spann and Ja­son Browne, al­so known as Ab­dul Karim, were charged for her ab­duc­tion.