JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, May 7, 2025

TTPS launches probe into gangs spying on police

by

358 days ago
20240514

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the dis­cov­ery of il­le­gal CCTV cam­eras mount­ed by gangs to mon­i­tor po­lice sta­tions, says Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds.

And busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tions in T&T have all ex­pressed deep con­cern over the is­sue, stress­ing the need for var­i­ous forms of ac­tion from au­thor­i­ties.

Hinds spoke on the mat­ter in the Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day in re­sponse to ques­tions from UNC MP Roodal Mooni­lal.

Mooni­lal asked what ur­gent ac­tion had been tak­en to ad­dress the un­prece­dent­ed and re­cent rev­e­la­tions that gang mem­bers had utilised 23 CCTV cam­eras to mon­i­tor po­lice of­fi­cers. These were mount­ed on TTEC poles out­side three sta­tions in East Trinidad.

Hinds said it was not un­prece­dent­ed.

“We’ve seen it be­fore in T&T and around the world. It’s an un­for­tu­nate de­vel­op­ment but it oc­curred,” he said.

Hinds said the TTPS had as­sem­bled a pow­er­ful team, in­clud­ing its cy­ber­crime, so­cial me­dia and re­search an­a­lyt­i­cal units to in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter. He said they will gath­er all the facts - who, what when, where, and on what au­thor­i­ty if any cam­eras were mount­ed on T&TEC poles.

“It ap­pears none. T&TEC - the au­thor­i­ty TTPS is col­lab­o­rat­ing with on this - has in­di­cat­ed it au­tho­rised (as is re­quired un­der law) no one to in­stall cam­eras on its poles. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, po­lice are speak­ing to peo­ple, can­vass­ing views of peo­ple in the neigh­bour­hoods to de­ter­mine these facts.”

On Mooni­lal’s query about whether an in­de­pen­dent probe will be done, Hinds said, “It is the po­lice that in­ves­ti­gates crime in T&T. In terms of mon­i­tor­ing T&T’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty af­fairs, we al­so have the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) and both the SSA and TTPS are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to this mat­ter.”

Con­grat­u­lat­ing po­lice in the di­vi­sion where the cam­eras were found, Hinds added, “It is po­lice of­fi­cers who ob­served these ob­jects where they ought not to have been, col­lab­o­rat­ed with TTEC, clar­i­fied that they were unau­tho­rised and the po­lice re­moved all 23 cam­eras. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are seek­ing to find out if there are oth­ers.”

He said re­cent talk about “61 and 62 cam­eras” and “po­lice seiz­ing mon­i­tor­ing equip­ment in of­fices or homes” was un­true.

Mooni­lal asked if the min­istry did an in­ven­to­ry of CCTV cam­eras at Gov­ern­ment lo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing the Prime Min­is­ter and Pres­i­dent’s res­i­dences, and at Par­lia­ment. Hinds clashed with the Op­po­si­tion in his re­ply that the for­mer prime min­is­ter dis­man­tled se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras at the PM’s res­i­dence. Say­ing crim­i­nals have al­ways want­ed to mon­i­tor TTPS’ ac­tiv­i­ty, Hinds said Par­lia­ment records will show Mooni­lal has been mon­i­tored by the TTPS in un­der­cov­er cars.

Mooni­lal said, “This mad min­ster is talk­ing rub­bish...!”

Busi­ness en­ti­ties con­cerned

The dis­cov­ery of the “spy” cam­eras set up by gangs has trou­bled busi­ness groups.

Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce pres­i­dent Ra­mon Gre­go­rio, in whose ar­eas the 23 cam­eras were found, said, “This is of grave con­cern to us and the wider busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty but we’re heart­ened that po­lice are aware and treat­ing with this with ut­most im­por­tance and fo­cus.

“As a cham­ber, we’d like leg­is­la­tion to be passed that en­cour­ages penal­ties and fines for any per­sons in­stalling unau­tho­rised de­vices in pub­lic spaces. Po­lice and in­tel­li­gence sources need to work to­geth­er to stamp out this prac­tice. The Tu­na­puna Sta­tion Coun­cil moves stead­fast­ly with the Ea­gle Eye project and we en­cour­age due dili­gence and ex­tra vig­i­lance to be tak­en by busi­ness­es.”

Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj said Ch­agua­nas is al­ready un­der siege, as res­i­dents con­tin­ue fac­ing ex­tor­tion threats.

“Com­pound­ing this is the rev­e­la­tion that crim­i­nals have es­tab­lished their own sur­veil­lance net­works to mon­i­tor law en­force­ment ac­tiv­i­ties - a brazen breach of T&T’s se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus. This un­set­tling de­vel­op­ment begs the ur­gent need for com­pre­hen­sive se­cu­ri­ty re­forms to safe­guard the pop­u­la­tion from be­com­ing easy tar­gets in their own com­mu­ni­ties.”

AM­CHAM CEO Ni­rad Tewarie said, “This dis­cov­ery is deeply con­cern­ing. Clear­ly, it points to a com­pro­mis­ing of our se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices and in­creas­ing so­phis­ti­ca­tion of the op­er­a­tions of crim­i­nal gangs. How­ev­er, the un­cov­er­ing and dis­man­tling of these ac­tiv­i­ties are quite com­mend­able.

“The thought of a link, based on re­cent rev­e­la­tions by the Prime Min­is­ter and in the me­dia, be­tween these ac­tiv­i­ties and the state in­tel­li­gence ser­vice (SSA) is alarm­ing. We al­so re­it­er­ate that any mean­ing­ful ef­fort to com­bat crime must in­clude fol­low­ing the mon­ey and the pros­e­cu­tion of white-col­lar crime.”

The T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce said the dis­cov­ery of covert sur­veil­lance de­vices rais­es alarms in T&T.

“It is ap­par­ent that the dis­cov­ery of the ‘spy cam­era’ shows the or­gan­ised na­ture of the crim­i­nal el­e­ments. This is a con­cern that has been raised many times be­fore by sev­er­al busi­ness sec­tor or­gan­i­sa­tions. We need swift and de­ci­sive ac­tion by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and oth­er se­cu­ri­ty forces.

“De­layed re­spons­es to such is­sues af­ford crim­i­nal el­e­ments am­ple time to strate­gise, pre­sent­ing a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge to de­tec­tion ef­forts. Ur­gent ac­tion is im­per­a­tive to ad­dress the pro­lif­er­a­tion of these in­tru­sive tech­nolo­gies through co­or­di­nat­ed ef­forts among law en­force­ment agen­cies and stake­hold­ers.”

The cham­ber added, “We ac­knowl­edge the se­ri­ous im­pli­ca­tions of these de­vel­op­ments on lo­cal busi­ness­es and the over­all se­cu­ri­ty land­scape. The pres­ence of unau­tho­rised sur­veil­lance equip­ment not on­ly de­ters po­ten­tial cus­tomers but al­so erodes trust with­in the pop­u­la­tion and ham­pers eco­nom­ic growth in af­fect­ed ar­eas. The T&T Cham­ber calls on au­thor­i­ties to ur­gent­ly con­vene meet­ings with busi­ness ser­vice or­gan­i­sa­tions and oth­er key stake­hold­ers to col­lec­tive­ly ad­dress these press­ing con­cerns re­lat­ed to crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.”

T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion head Roger Roach added, “The dis­cov­ery of gangs in­stalling CCTV cam­eras to mon­i­tor po­lice move­ments in­di­cates a con­cern­ing lev­el of so­phis­ti­ca­tion and tech­no­log­i­cal adop­tion with­in or­gan­ised crime groups in T&T. Such ac­tiv­i­ty has far-reach­ing con­se­quences such as in­creased risk to law en­force­ment; gangs be­ing pre-emp­tive in their ac­tions; pos­si­ble es­ca­la­tion of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties; and im­por­tant­ly neg­a­tive im­pact and con­se­quence on the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty. Such ac­tiv­i­ty can al­low for ero­sion of pub­lic trust.”

Roach added, “TTMA is thank­ful such ac­tiv­i­ties by gangs have been iden­ti­fied. Now it be­comes im­per­a­tive for law en­force­ment to take de­ci­sive ac­tion to coun­ter­act the in­flu­ence of or­gan­ised crime and en­sure height­ened safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of cit­i­zens and busi­ness alike.”

Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers pres­i­dent Vivek Char­ran said, “The dis­cov­ery is shock­ing and dis­turb­ing. It rais­es ques­tions of how the cam­eras were in­stalled on the poles, how long were these ar­eas un­der sur­veil­lance and if cam­eras are di­rect­ly re­lat­ed to the many gang shootouts that have been hap­pen­ing on these ar­eas, par­tic­u­lar­ly Tu­na­puna. Are civil­ians and busi­ness­es al­so be­ing mon­i­tored? Is this crim­i­nal strat­e­gy used to plan home in­va­sions and armed rob­beries, could it lead to kid­nap­pings?”

He added, “Po­lice are due cred­it for the dis­cov­ery. But are there oth­er hubs in dif­fer­ent ar­eas? Are oth­er ar­eas un­der sur­veil­lance? It shows that while polic­ing can of­ten be em­broiled in red tape, ad­min­is­tra­tive bu­reau­cra­cy and even po­lit­i­cal el­e­ments, the crim­i­nals are sin­gle-mind­ed in their ap­proach to find ways to thwart the po­lice’s plans.”


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored