Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jen­sn.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Head of the An­ti-Ex­tor­tion and Home In­va­sion Units, ACP Richard Smith, says there is a new trend be­ing used by crim­i­nals to ex­tort their vic­tims.

Speak­ing at a me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing Fri­day, Smith said crim­i­nals are charg­ing vic­tims to neu­tralise sup­posed death threats, and when the vic­tims pay, they use that as lever­age for fur­ther ex­tor­tion at­tempts.

“One of the trends that we are see­ing as it re­lates to de­mand­ing mon­ey by men­ace or ex­tor­tion, some of the re­ports that we have been re­ceiv­ing is the fact that per­sons are call­ing the vic­tims and telling them that they have in­for­ma­tion or they were hired to kill the vic­tim. Now a vic­tim be­ing in fear would then say, okay, what can I do? That per­son, the per­pe­tra­tor, will now say I will take $40,000 not to kill you. They would al­so of­fer, make a coun­terof­fer as well, say­ing if you want me to get rid of the threat, you can pay me a fur­ther $20,000.”

He added that last year there were 40 re­ports of ex­tor­tion up to March 9, and for the same pe­ri­od this year there were 18 re­ports. He not­ed that this is a 55 per­cent re­duc­tion, with a 67 per­cent rise in the de­tec­tion rate, as 12 of the 18 re­ports were de­tect­ed, com­pared to 55 per­cent last year, when on­ly 22 of the 40 were de­tect­ed.

He said the North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion had nine re­ports this year com­pared to eight last year, while the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion had eight re­ports last year and on­ly two for the same pe­ri­od this year. The North East­ern Di­vi­sion had five re­ports last year and three this year, while the East­ern Di­vi­sion had five re­ports in 2025 with ze­ro re­ports up to March 9 this year. The Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion had one re­port last year and none for the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od this year, while the South West­ern Di­vi­sion in­creased by one re­port this year af­ter no re­ports for the pe­ri­od last year. Sim­i­lar­ly, the West­ern Di­vi­sion saw ze­ro re­ports in 2025 and three this year. The South­ern Di­vi­sion, hav­ing five re­ports last year, saw none this year, while To­ba­go went from eight re­ports in 2025 to ze­ro this year. The North­ern Di­vi­sion North had no re­ports for the pe­ri­od ei­ther last year or this year.

Smith said that an­oth­er way ex­tor­tion­ists are tar­get­ing their vic­tims is through black­mail via sex­u­al en­coun­ters.

He warned: “We have to be care­ful about these, our ac­tiv­i­ties and about the se­crets that we have peo­ple hold­ing for us. We must be care­ful as it re­lates to that.”

For home in­va­sions, Smith said there were 28 re­ports since the of­fence of home in­va­sions was made law, with eight be­ing de­tect­ed, mean­ing some­one was ar­rest­ed and charged.

"The team is a new­ly formed team and we are in fact in­ves­ti­gat­ing all these of­fences to­geth­er with the di­vi­sion. So, we have not tak­en over these re­ports, but we are work­ing to­geth­er with the di­vi­sions to de­tect these crimes to ar­rest these sus­pects and deal with them ac­cord­ing to the law. We are urg­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to con­tin­ue shar­ing in­for­ma­tion with us."

Smith ad­vised the pub­lic to con­tact his unit at 797-3150 or 682-7043.