An­na-Lisa Paul

The pub­lic has been warned to ex­er­cise cau­tion when pur­chas­ing items from street ped­dlers, as buy­ers can be held crim­i­nal­ly li­able if it is de­ter­mined that the items were stolen. The warn­ing was is­sued by the Pub­lic In­for­ma­tion Of­fi­cer of the Po­lice Ser­vice, Sgt Wayne Mys­tar dur­ing yes­ter­day's dai­ly brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain.

Mys­tar is­sued the warn­ing fol­low­ing the ar­rest of eight per­sons from Curepe and Mal­oney on Mon­day night, who were charged for re­ceiv­ing stolen prop­er­ty. Dur­ing the pe­ri­od 2 pm to 10 pm on June 11, an an­ti-crime ini­tia­tive led by In­sp Seecha­ran and Sgt Sinanan in the Tu­na­puna area led to an 18-year-old man be­ing ar­rest­ed for house­break­ing and lar­ce­ny.

Fol­low­ing his ar­rest, the sus­pect led po­lice to the homes of peo­ple to whom he had sold the stolen elec­tron­ics, which in­clud­ed cell phones, Game Boys, DVDs and oth­er equip­ment. The eight were lat­er ar­rest­ed and charged with re­ceiv­ing stolen prop­er­ty. Mys­tar urged the pub­lic to ex­er­cise due care when pur­chas­ing items and to en­sure they got a re­ceipt.

Quot­ing from the Lar­ce­ny Act, Chap­ter 11:12, Mys­tar read: "Any per­son who re­ceives any prop­er­ty know­ing the same to be stolen or ob­tained what­so­ev­er un­der any cir­cum­stance which amounts to an in­dictable of­fence, is li­able to im­pris­on­ment for up to ten years." He urged shop­pers "to do some back­ground checks" be­fore pur­chas­ing any item or they may end up pos­si­bly go­ing to court to ex­plain.