Derek Achong

Scores of rob­bery vic­tims from across north Trinidad yes­ter­day came for­ward to take part in iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rades in­volv­ing two jour­nal­ists who were ar­rest­ed on Sun­day af­ter an armed rob­bery. Both sus­pects, who are em­ployed with the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Net­work (CCN), are be­lieved to be be­hind mul­ti­ple armed rob­beries across Trinidad in which they posed as po­lice of­fi­cers to gain en­try in­to their vic­tims' homes.

Up to late yes­ter­day, nine pa­rades were con­duct­ed at the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion. How­ev­er, it could not be con­firmed if the me­dia work­ers had been fin­gered by the al­leged rob­bery vic­tims. Fur­ther pa­rades are ex­pect­ed to be con­duct­ed lat­er to­day.

Un­til crim­i­nal charges are laid, the main sus­pect in the Sun­day's rob­bery, a 24-year-old se­nior re­porter with the Trinidad Ex­press news­pa­per, will re­main in cus­tody at the Ari­ma Po­lice Sta­tion. The oth­er sus­pect, a cam­era­man with tele­vi­sion sta­tion TV6, has been de­tained at the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion. Both are said to be work­ing with in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

They were ar­rest­ed along with two se­cu­ri­ty guards who, al­leged­ly, were al­so in­volved in the rob­bery. Ac­cord­ing to of­fi­cial po­lice re­ports, around 8 pm, the own­er of the store, lo­cat­ed along Range Road, Five Rivers, Arou­ca, re­port­ed to of­fi­cers of the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion he was be­ing robbed.

The law­men re­spond­ed and were re­port­ed­ly met with gun­fire from the sus­pects. Af­ter a five-minute shootout, the four men sur­ren­dered. They were said to be wear­ing bul­let­proof vests but no masks. The men re­lieved the pro­pri­etor of more than $250,000 in TT and US cur­ren­cy and al­so re­moved a case of John­ny Walk­er Black Scotch whisky be­fore at­tempt­ing to flee the scene.

One of the sus­pects, a 27-year-old Port-of-Spain res­i­dent, sus­tained a gun­shot wound to the right leg. He was tak­en to hos­pi­tal where he re­mained ward­ed up to late yes­ter­day. The cam­era­man, a fa­ther of one from Ari­ma, was found seat­ed in the dri­ver's seat of a grey Toy­ota Hilux pick-up truck, reg­is­tered to CCN.

Of the two firearms that were re­cov­ered by po­lice from the sus­pects, one was traced yes­ter­day by in­ves­ti­ga­tors to for­mer Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ken­ny Mo­hammed. On Jan­u­ary 16, Mo­hammed made a re­port to po­lice his li­censed Sig Sauer 9mm pis­tol, with 23 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, were stolen dur­ing a house-break­ing at his La Floris­sante, Ari­ma, home.

The gun was traced us­ing its unique se­r­i­al num­ber. Since learn­ing of the firearm's own­er, in­ves­ti­ga­tors were said to be con­sid­er­ing lay­ing ad­di­tion­al charges on the re­porter who was found bran­dish­ing the weapon pri­or to his ar­rest. The T&T Guardian was re­li­ably in­formed that po­lice yes­ter­day raid­ed the known ad­dress­es of the four sus­pects and sev­er­al fraud­u­lent search war­rants and se­cu­ri­ty uni­forms were re­cov­ered.

A pis­tol mag­a­zine al­so was said to be found in the re­porter's Curepe apart­ment. It is be­lieved the group used the fraud­u­lent war­rants to gain en­try in­to their vic­tims' prop­er­ties, po­lice sources said.