An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials in the North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion (NCD) have con­firmed in­creas­es in mur­ders, sex­u­al of­fences, home in­va­sions and fraud since the start of the year. They al­so urged res­i­dents to take steps to pro­tect them­selves and their prop­er­ty.

At a town hall meet­ing at the Curepe Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on Wednes­day, res­i­dents raised con­cerns about sus­pect­ed il­le­gal im­mi­grants walk­ing through the area, garbage be­ing searched and scat­tered, derelict ve­hi­cles ob­struct­ing traf­fic and ve­hi­cles parked along Lyn­don Street by a garage own­er.

They al­so com­plained about phys­i­cal abuse of el­der­ly res­i­dents, noise from bars and in­con­sid­er­ate be­hav­iour by maxi-taxi and taxi dri­vers on main roads and with­in the East Grove Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment.

Po­lice as­sured res­i­dents and busi­ness own­ers that they are ready to ad­dress their con­cerns.

Vern­ly Gift, se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent of the NCD, en­cour­aged res­i­dents to work with the St Joseph Sta­tion Coun­cil, led by Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh. Gift said the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion was the busiest of the di­vi­sion’s five sta­tions and had record­ed in­creas­es in sev­er­al crime cat­e­gories.

Mur­ders fell from 11 in 2024 to three in 2025, but rose to 14 so far this year, Gift said. The lat­est was record­ed on Wednes­day, af­ter a body was found along Trantrill Road, St Au­gus­tine.

Sex­u­al of­fences in­creased from eight in 2024 to 19 in 2025 and 22 so far this year. Gift said the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) had achieved its high­est de­tec­tion rate in this cat­e­go­ry, not­ing that vic­tims of­ten knew the al­leged per­pe­tra­tors.

There were no home in­va­sions re­port­ed in 2024 or 2025, but 16 have been record­ed so far this year. Gift said the St Joseph sta­tion re­ceived the most re­ports, par­tic­u­lar­ly from Val­sayn. He said po­lice had ar­rest­ed sev­er­al peo­ple in con­nec­tion with the of­fences.

“Se­cure your homes and be vig­i­lant,” he said, rec­om­mend­ing alarms, CCTV cam­eras, se­cu­ri­ty pa­trols and watch­dogs.

Fraud-re­lat­ed of­fences rose from 24 in 2024 to 26 in 2025 and 80 so far this year. Gift said fraud was af­fect­ing the en­tire coun­try, in­clud­ing through scams on Face­book Mar­ket­place.

Gift al­so warned that thieves were tar­get­ing items such as weed-wack­ers, blow­ers and wa­ter hoses for quick re­sale. Mo­tor ve­hi­cle lar­ce­ny fell from 104 re­ports in 2024 to 38 in 2025, then rose to 42 so far this year. Ve­hi­cles com­mon­ly stolen in­clude Toy­ota Aqua, Nis­san Ti­i­da and Axio, Hon­da Vezel, KIA vans, Hyundai H100s and Nis­san AD wag­ons.

He urged ve­hi­cle own­ers to in­stall GPS de­vices and alarms and use oth­er an­ti-theft mea­sures. Gift al­so ad­vised peo­ple to buy for­eign ex­change on­ly through rep­utable fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, fol­low­ing re­ports of coun­ter­feit US cur­ren­cy in cir­cu­la­tion.

Se­nior crime an­a­lyst Asha Charles, of the Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis branch, of­fered safe­ty ad­vice, in­clud­ing in­stalling CCTV cam­eras, adding locks to doors and win­dows, and vary­ing de­par­ture and ar­rival times.

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ve­na But­ler apol­o­gised af­ter a res­i­dent said an of­fi­cer at the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion had cursed him three years ago when he tried to make a re­port.

“We have heard you and we will do bet­ter,” But­ler told the el­der­ly res­i­dent and oth­ers.

But­ler, Gift and As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dents Joshua Pierre and Sunil Bharath said they were com­mit­ted to re­build­ing pub­lic trust and ad­dress­ing res­i­dents’ con­cerns.

TPRC vice-chair­man Clay­ton Black­man said res­i­dents’ con­cerns had been not­ed. He praised the po­lice, say­ing, “I will give the po­lice an A-plus tonight.”