Two journalists are among four men expected to appear before an Arima magistrate today charged with more than five robberies in which they posed as police officers. One of them, a reporter with the Trinidad Express newspapers, has been charged with ten criminal offences. Police said the reporter allegedly had a criminal record which included previous convictions for housebreaking and larceny.
Similar charges were laid against a cameraman, employed with Caribbean Communications Network (CCN TV6), and two security guards. The four were charged with offences, which included armed robbery, shooting with intent, impersonating a police officer, uttering a false document, robbery with violence and possession of a firearm and ammunition.
The suspects were arrested after a liquor store on Range Road, Arouca, was robbed on Sunday around 8 pm. The police said the men, who posed as police officers, went to the businessplace with a search warrant. The owner later was robbed of more than $250,000 in cash and a case of Johnny Walker Scotch whisky, valued at $2,700, police said.
The men were confronted by police and were held after an alleged shootout. Police recovered two nine-mm pistols with six rounds of ammunition. One allegedly belonged to retired police commissioner Kenny Mohammed, whose home was broken into last January.
Searches of the suspects' homes revealed several security uniforms, fraudulent search warrants, security devices and a pistol magazine. They were placed on identification parades at the La Horquetta Police Station on Monday and at the Port-of-Spain CID yesterday. Several robbery victims attended the parades, police said. Police sources said yesterday one of the security guards was identified by a Venezuelan student who allegedly was robbed in Woodbrook earlier this year.
The suspect was identified by another Woodbrook resident, who said he robbed her at gunpoint as she walked near her home. The group was also identified as having been allegedly involved in two other armed robberies in east Trinidad. ACP Terry Young and Sr Supt David Abraham led investigations.