DEREK ACHONG AND GEISHA KOW­LESSAR

A ma­jor rob­bery ring is be­lieved to have been bust­ed as po­lice moved in on a kiosk at Town Cen­tre Mall on Fred­er­ick Street in Port-of-Spain ar­rest­ing the pro­pri­etor and seiz­ing dozens of cell phones be­lieved to be stolen. The op­er­a­tion, which oc­curred be­tween 5pm and 7 pm on Wednes­day, came in the wake of in­tel­li­gence re­ceived by the po­lice. Of­fi­cers seized 67 phones most of which car­ried the Black­ber­ry brand and a Dell com­put­er al­so be­lieved to be stolen.

A 30 year old man of Barataria is ex­pect­ed to be charged with 50 counts of re­ceiv­ing stolen goods. Po­lice said peo­ple were duped in­to pur­chas­ing the phones af­ter they were palmed off as be­ing brand new. The sus­pect, po­lice added, was be­ing mon­i­tored for a while. Of­fi­cers are ask­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic who might have had their cell phones stolen to vis­it the Wood­brook Po­lice Sta­tion to have their phones iden­ti­fied. In a sep­a­rate in­ci­dent, four sus­pects were nabbed on out­stand­ing war­rants re­lat­ed to lar­ce­ny mat­ters. The ex­er­cise was head­ed by Supt Wayne Boyd and ASP Ajith Per­sad.

Car­ni­val safe­ty tips

When leav­ing you house­holds you are re­mind­ed that you should:

• En­sure that you se­cure your premis­es

• Se­cure all lad­ders and oth­er im­ple­ments in a locked room

• Not leave keys in mail­box­es or un­der door mats

• No­ti­fy the po­lice if you are go­ing to be away for long pe­ri­ods

• Have a friend or rel­a­tive check the house­hold to re­move news­pa­pers, milk and oth­er de­liv­er­ies

• Teach your chil­dren to lock the doors af­ter they en­ter

• En­sure that the prop­er­ty is il­lu­mi­nat­ed at night

• Be ob­ser­vant when re­turn­ing home, es­pe­cial­ly at night

When dri­ving to fetes and oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties you are re­mind­ed that you should:

• En­sure that your ve­hi­cle is prop­er­ly se­cured

• Use paid car parks when­ev­er pos­si­ble

• Not over­crowd ve­hi­cles

• Not drink and dri­ve

• Lock doors when ve­hi­cle is in mo­tion

• No­ti­fy the po­lice when­ev­er you ob­serve any strange ac­tiv­i­ties around ve­hi­cles

• Obey traf­fic signs es­pe­cial­ly re­lat­ing to park­ing

• Do not leave ve­hi­cle un­at­tend­ed with keys in the ig­ni­tion

• Do not leave your ve­hi­cle un­at­tend­ed with en­gine run­ning

• Do not leave valu­able items ex­posed in your ve­hi­cle

• Be cau­tious of per­sons loi­ter­ing near traf­fic lights

• Have your keys in hand when you ap­proach your ve­hi­cle

• Be vig­i­lant at all times when re­turn­ing home es­pe­cial­ly at night and if you are trav­el­ling alone