OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Lo­cal con­trac­tors are be­ing urged to come for­ward and re­port cas­es of ex­tor­tion.

The call comes from both the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and the T&T Con­trac­tors’ As­so­ci­a­tion, in the wake of an ex­clu­sive re­port by Guardian Me­dia which high­light­ed the ex­tor­tion of a con­trac­tor by an al­leged gang leader.

The con­trac­tor record­ed con­ver­sa­tions be­tween him­self and the al­leged gang leader, ex­pos­ing a de­mand for $30,000 per month for pro­tec­tion and threat­en­ing vi­o­lence at the con­struc­tion site in east Trinidad if the pay­ment was not made.

The TTPS has ini­ti­at­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the mat­ter and is pro­tect­ing the con­trac­tor and his work­ers at the con­struc­tion site.

Guardian Me­dia learned that a cit­i­zen’s re­port has been filed, and the record­ings are now in the pos­ses­sion of po­lice of­fi­cers. The mat­ter is ac­tive­ly un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion, with a fo­cus on iden­ti­fy­ing and ap­pre­hend­ing the in­di­vid­u­als in­volved, ac­cord­ing to the TTPS.

Head of the Crim­i­nal Di­vi­sion of the TTPS, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Kent Ghisyawan, is­sued a state­ment yes­ter­day ad­vis­ing the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and the pub­lic to take any calls de­mand­ing mon­ey with­out jus­ti­fi­ca­tion se­ri­ous­ly.

He en­cour­aged busi­ness­men to en­gage the po­lice at the ear­li­est op­por­tu­ni­ty and to record rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion, such as tele­phone num­bers, to aid in iden­ti­fy­ing the callers.

ACP Ghisyawan cau­tioned against mak­ing pay­ments or part­ing with prop­er­ty. He al­so rec­om­mend­ed var­i­ous mea­sures, in­clud­ing the use of CCTV cam­eras, and in­stalling alarms that can con­nect to se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies. He as­sured that the TTPS was ful­ly com­mit­ted to bring­ing those in­volved in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties to jus­tice.

Mean­while, the Con­trac­tors’ As­so­ci­a­tion al­so weighed in on the al­leged ex­tor­tion of con­trac­tors. It not­ed that while they had not re­ceived for­mal re­ports, these in­stances may not be iso­lat­ed.

As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Glen Ma­habirs­ingh, in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, stat­ed that mem­bers fac­ing chal­lenges re­lat­ed to project ex­e­cu­tion could reach out to the as­so­ci­a­tion for guid­ance and sup­port on a case-by-case ba­sis.

He em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of tak­ing such sit­u­a­tions se­ri­ous­ly and urged lo­cal con­trac­tors to re­port them to the po­lice ser­vice.

The lo­cal con­trac­tor in ques­tion, is now said to be in a se­cure lo­ca­tion while po­lice of­fi­cers car­ry out their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Last month, two men from Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni, were ar­rest­ed and charged with the al­leged ex­tor­tion of a busi­ness­man. The duo was even­tu­al­ly grant­ed bail.

Po­lice re­ports in­di­cat­ed that in Ju­ly, the busi­ness­man was in­struct­ed to pay $100,000 or he would be shot and the busi­ness place burnt.

The busi­ness­man al­leged­ly paid the mon­ey but fur­ther de­mands were made, which prompt­ed him to re­port the mat­ter to the po­lice, lead­ing to the ar­rests.