One day af­ter kid­nap vic­tims Ryan Singh and Keer­an Latch­man es­caped from their cap­tors in a forest­ed part of San Pe­dro Road, Va­len­cia, res­i­dents are con­cerned that the rur­al com­mu­ni­ty is be­ing used as a haven for crim­i­nals.

Singh, 18 and Latch­man, 21, were re­port­ed­ly con­front­ed by at­tack­ers on Mon­day morn­ing while de­liv­er­ing scaf­fold­ing equip­ment when they were ab­duct­ed.

A ran­som of $1.2 mil­lion was de­mand­ed for the re­lease of both men.

A po­lice me­dia re­lease on Wednes­day said an ad­di­tion­al po­lice ex­er­cise in the area led to the kid­nap­pers aban­don­ing the hide­out, which al­lowed Singh and Latch­man to es­cape.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Singh’s fam­i­ly’s home to try and speak with him af­ter the ab­duc­tion, but rel­a­tives de­clined com­ment, cit­ing “se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns” af­ter his or­deal.

At Rus Tu­na Trace, off San Pe­dro Road, where both men were held, res­i­dents of the sparse­ly pop­u­lat­ed com­mu­ni­ty are wary of the “trou­ble” creep­ing in­to the com­mu­ni­ty.

One man, who asked not to be iden­ti­fied, re­called see­ing a heavy po­lice pres­ence on Tall­boy Trace, on Wednes­day and lat­er learned it was part of in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the kid­nap­ping.

He said while the com­mu­ni­ty was gen­er­al­ly qui­et, he ad­mit­ted there were some “trou­ble­mak­ers” and hoped po­lice would take a more proac­tive stance against crim­i­nals.

“It have one or two fel­las in the area... they need to get them out, but yet they (the po­lice) not do­ing noth­ing.

“Why alyuh wait­ing for some­thing to hap­pen to act, when you can pre­vent it?”

The res­i­dent al­so knocked what he claimed was a lack of in­ter­est from po­lice, even af­ter re­ports were made.

He said that while many res­i­dents were will­ing to part­ner with po­lice in re­port­ing crimes, he hoped that the au­thor­i­ties showed sim­i­lar en­thu­si­asm in fol­low­ing-up on crimes de­spite the re­mote lo­ca­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty.

“They know even if men make a re­port, the po­lice not com­ing to look for them, so they walk­ing about free the next day, go­ing about their busi­ness.”

An­oth­er res­i­dent, who al­so asked not to be named, said he re­mem­bered see­ing one of the vic­tims in the neigh­bour­hood on Wednes­day morn­ing as he sought help in find­ing di­rec­tions to the near­est road.

The man said the vic­tim ap­peared to be un­kempt but in gen­er­al good health.

“He was a to­tal stranger to me, I didn’t recog­nise him from around, but he looked healthy.

“He had a tall boots on and a bur­gundy jer­sey around his neck, he walked past me and said hel­lo.

“It was on­ly lat­er that evening I re­alised what hap­pened in the same area.”

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions via What­sApp yes­ter­day head of the East­ern Di­vi­sion, Snr Supt Christo­pher Pa­ponette, said the TTPS was com­mit­ted to dis­rupt­ing il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“The East­ern Di­vi­sion con­tin­ues to op­er­ate with height­ened vig­i­lance and strate­gic fore­sight.

“We are ac­tive­ly en­gaged in in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions aimed at dis­man­tling crim­i­nal net­works, sup­press­ing firearm-re­lat­ed of­fences, and safe­guard­ing vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties across the di­vi­sion, in­clud­ing the To­co, Ma­yaro and San­gre Grande dis­tricts.”

On Wednes­day night, To­co/San­gre Grande MP and Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge raised con­cerns over what he de­scribed as the pos­si­ble pres­ence of Venezue­lan gang Tren de Aragua in the lo­cal un­der­world land­scape.

Sturge re­port­ed­ly at­trib­uted the uptick in crime, in­clud­ing in his own con­stituen­cy, to the pro­lif­er­a­tion of the gang.

Pa­ponette de­clined to re­spond di­rect­ly to these claims but main­tained that the TTPS, par­tic­u­lar­ly his di­vi­sion, was pre­pared to treat with any threat.