The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has of­fered a $100,000 re­ward for in­for­ma­tion lead­ing to the ar­rest and pros­e­cu­tion of peo­ple be­hind the acts of theft and van­dal­ism that have been tak­ing place at es­sen­tial util­i­ty lo­ca­tions in re­cent weeks.

In an­nounc­ing this dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc Don­ald Ja­cob said the in­creas­ing in­ci­dents, which dis­rupt­ed telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions, wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty ser­vices, are now threat­en­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

He said the acts had moved be­yond sim­ple van­dal­ism.

Ja­cob said the TTPS had in­ves­ti­gat­ed a to­tal of 192 such re­ports over the past two and a half years.

Point­ing out that 139 peo­ple had been ar­rest­ed and charged, in­clud­ing two scrap-yard deal­ers (one in Trinidad and an­oth­er in To­ba­go), the CoP said, “But the acts con­tin­ue and that is the rea­son why we strong­ly be­lieve that it is be­yond the ques­tion of just lar­ce­ny.”

Re­fer­ring to a re­cent in­ci­dent at Cross Cross­ing, San Fer­nan­do, in which thieves made off with more than a hun­dred thou­sand dol­lars worth of ca­ble and mis­tak­en­ly van­dalised TSTT’s fi­bre op­tic ca­bles in the process, Ja­cob said, “What I saw there was be­yond theft.”

He said the sit­u­a­tion has now, “moved from just lar­ce­ny to ma­li­cious dam­age.”

Re­veal­ing just how the theft had ad­verse­ly im­pact­ed the TTPS among oth­ers, he ex­plained, “The TTPS last week­end had no oth­er al­ter­na­tive but to call out ad­di­tion­al of­fi­cers to work in the South­ern and South West­ern Di­vi­sions be­cause of that com­mu­ni­ca­tion sit­u­a­tion that oc­curred, where­by those cop­per wires and fi­bre op­tic ca­bles be­ing cut and re­moved cre­at­ed a sig­nif­i­cant se­cu­ri­ty risk for the cit­i­zens of T&T if they wished to com­mu­ni­cate with the po­lice.”

He said they were forced to im­ple­ment an emer­gency plan in re­spect of the two di­vi­sions, which led to ad­di­tion­al of­fi­cers be­ing called out.

Re­gard­ing the elec­tri­cal theft at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty’s (WASA) Cal­i­for­nia Boost­er Sta­tion on Thurs­day, which re­sult­ed in the fa­cil­i­ty be­ing dis­abled, Ja­cob said the team of in­ves­ti­ga­tors ap­point­ed to probe the in­ci­dent had re­port­ed sim­i­lar find­ings, which re­in­forced strong opin­ions that it was be­yond lar­ce­ny and was def­i­nite­ly ma­li­cious dam­age.

Hint­ing that there are more se­ri­ous in­ten­tions be­hind the on­go­ing acts, Ja­cob said when cit­i­zens are with­out re­li­able wa­ter, elec­tri­cal and telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion ser­vices, they of­ten opt to demon­strate their anger and dis­plea­sure through protests and demon­stra­tions which fur­ther dis­rupt na­tion­al ac­tiv­i­ties.

“We have viewed this sit­u­a­tion as def­i­nite­ly be­ing a se­cu­ri­ty risk for T&T which is af­fect­ing the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty net­work and we firm­ly be­lieve at this stage…with the con­sent of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, we have de­cid­ed to of­fer a re­ward of $100,000 for in­for­ma­tion that can lead to the ar­rest and pros­e­cu­tion of the per­sons who are re­spon­si­ble,” Ja­cob said.

The pub­lic is urged to con­tact 555 or 800-TIPS to re­port in­for­ma­tion.

As­sur­ing that ad­di­tion­al mea­sures will al­so be in­tro­duced in the com­ing days at all pub­lic util­i­ty lo­ca­tions, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds said the T&T De­fence Force (TTDF) had al­so been asked to pro­vide sol­diers to as­sist in the height­ened pa­trols, es­pe­cial­ly in ar­eas where there may be state in­fra­struc­ture which could be tar­get­ed.

He en­cour­aged cit­i­zens to “reach out and touch that very gen­er­ous re­ward,” not­ing it would go a long way in plac­ing the crim­i­nal el­e­ments where they ought to be. He said Sec­tion 21 of the Ma­li­cious Dam­age Act spoke to the pro­tec­tion of the state’s pub­lic util­i­ties.