An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Nicholas Ram­sey, own­er of N Ram­sey Con­sul­tan­cy, and Crime Stop­pers di­rec­tor Dar­rin Carmichael are warn­ing busi­ness­es and home­own­ers to be es­pe­cial­ly alert this Christ­mas sea­son, stress­ing that crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty be­comes more ag­gres­sive, op­por­tunis­tic, and strate­gi­cal­ly planned at this time of year.  

Both men said in­creased shop­ping, high­er cash cir­cu­la­tion, late-evening move­ments and pre­dictable hol­i­day rou­tines cre­ate con­di­tions that crim­i­nals ac­tive­ly ex­ploit, mak­ing vig­i­lance and smart be­hav­iour­al changes cru­cial for pub­lic safe­ty.

Ram­sey and Carmichael said the pub­lic must adopt more de­lib­er­ate habits, re­think their dig­i­tal be­hav­iour, strength­en com­mu­ni­ty com­mu­ni­ca­tion and recog­nise that pub­lic safe­ty re­quires col­lec­tive ef­fort. They warned that the threat en­vi­ron­ment has shift­ed, and cit­i­zens must shift with it.

Evolv­ing threat en­vi­ron­ment

Ram­sey, in an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian, said T&T con­tin­ues to face a height­ened and rapid­ly evolv­ing threat land­scape, one that de­mands sharp­er aware­ness and more dis­ci­plined rou­tines. He em­pha­sised that his in­ten­tion is not to cre­ate pan­ic but to make cit­i­zens con­front the re­al­i­ty that “it is not busi­ness as usu­al.”

He said the coun­try has been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a sus­tained rise in home in­va­sions, rob­beries and op­por­tunis­tic at­tacks since the end of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, a trend he ex­pects to ac­cel­er­ate dur­ing the hol­i­day pe­ri­od.
News­pa­per da­ta pub­lished by the Trinidad Guardian and the Trinidad Ex­press show that this coun­try has av­er­aged be­tween 2 and 4 home in­va­sions per month over the past 2 to 3 years. Ram­sey stressed that these fig­ures re­flect on­ly in­ci­dents that reach the me­dia, mean­ing the true num­ber is like­ly high­er. Many vic­tims, he said, choose not to speak pub­licly for per­son­al or safe­ty rea­sons, and some cas­es re­main un­re­port­ed be­cause fam­i­lies pre­fer to han­dle mat­ters pri­vate­ly.
Ram­sey not­ed that the na­ture of home in­va­sions has al­so changed. Crim­i­nals are no longer act­ing pure­ly on im­pulse; they are in­creas­ing­ly re­ly­ing on sur­veil­lance, pat­tern-track­ing, neigh­bour­hood in­for­ma­tion leaks and so­cial-me­dia foot­prints. He said crim­i­nals now mon­i­tor when peo­ple leave for work, when they re­turn, how they en­ter their homes, the ve­hi­cles they dri­ve and the on­line habits that re­veal when they are away. Some ob­serve fam­i­lies for days be­fore strik­ing, choos­ing times when mul­ti­ple rel­a­tives are in­side so they can ex­ert con­trol quick­ly.

He ref­er­enced a re­cent case in­volv­ing a fam­i­ly with strong ties to lo­cal faith com­mu­ni­ties. The per­pe­tra­tors stud­ied the house­hold’s habits, ex­ploit­ed a sev­en-minute lapse at the gate, and were lat­er linked to some­one con­nect­ed to an em­ploy­ee of the home. The fam­i­ly’s se­cu­ri­ty guard was over­pow­ered, the in­ci­dent un­fold­ed rapid­ly and the po­lice re­sponse took rough­ly 40 min­utes. Pro­tec­tive ser­vices re­spon­ders ar­rived ear­li­er, but the in­ci­dent high­light­ed how fast crim­i­nals can act when mon­i­tor­ing rou­tines.

Ram­sey said the trau­ma from such cas­es is long-last­ing and of­ten un­der­es­ti­mat­ed. Vic­tims may ex­pe­ri­ence night­mares, height­ened anx­i­ety, with­draw­al, and re­luc­tance to re­main in their own homes. He said coun­selling is of­ten need­ed be­cause the psy­cho­log­i­cal cost of a home in­va­sion can be far greater than the loss of valu­ables.

He  not­ed that com­mu­ni­ty in­volve­ment re­mains one of the strongest tools avail­able. In one pet­ty-theft case, neigh­bours col­lab­o­rat­ed to iden­ti­fy and track sus­pects with­in hours, demon­strat­ing the pow­er of shared vig­i­lance. Ram­sey urged cit­i­zens to strength­en neigh­bour­hood net­works, pay at­ten­tion to un­fa­mil­iar ve­hi­cles, and adopt the habit of qui­et­ly check­ing on one an­oth­er, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the hol­i­day pe­ri­od.

The Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian reached out to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis Branch for re­ports of Home In­va­sions from Port-of-Spain to To­ba­go di­vi­sion, the num­bers shown for 2023 was 602, while 2024, the num­ber stood at 535 and 2025 thus far was  293.

The  re­port al­so high­light­ed that  in the Po­lice Ser­vice, the phrase “home in­va­sion” is not of­fi­cial­ly recog­nised as a crim­i­nal of­fence or crime clas­si­fi­ca­tion. In­stead, it is com­mon­ly em­ployed as an ex­pres­sion to de­scribe the modus operan­di em­ployed by per­pe­tra­tors who en­gage in com­mit­ting vi­o­lent and prop­er­ty crimes.  

Turn­ing back to the ad­vice to cit­i­zens dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son, Ram­sey cau­tioned that crim­i­nals fre­quent­ly tar­get in­di­vid­u­als re­turn­ing from the air­port, peo­ple trans­port­ing lug­gage at night and fam­i­lies who post trav­el up­dates on­line. Post­ing while abroad, he said, is one of the most dan­ger­ous habits, as crim­i­nals use such in­for­ma­tion to time their en­try. He ad­vis­es fam­i­lies to post va­ca­tion pho­tos on­ly af­ter they re­turn home and to vary their routes when trav­el­ling from the air­port. If some­one sus­pects they are be­ing fol­lowed, he rec­om­mends dri­ving di­rect­ly to the near­est po­lice sta­tion rather than head­ing home.

He cau­tioned the pub­lic about the rise in ve­hi­cle-sale scams via Face­book Mar­ket­place and What­sApp groups. Sev­er­al in­di­vid­u­als have lost be­tween $40,000 and $50,000 af­ter meet­ing sell­ers in se­clud­ed ar­eas or agree­ing to pay de­posits in cash. Ram­sey urged buy­ers to con­duct trans­ac­tions on­ly at po­lice sta­tions or through fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions to pre­vent staged rob­beries or fraud­u­lent sales.

He in­di­cat­ed that busi­ness­es pay­ing work­ers in cash must re­vis­it their pay­roll cal­en­dars, vary with­draw­al times, and en­force strict in­ter­nal con­trols. Many rob­beries orig­i­nate from some­body with­in an es­tab­lish­ment, di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, shar­ing the rou­tines and move­ments of own­ers or man­agers. Ram­sey said crim­i­nals of­ten fol­low in­di­vid­u­als af­ter bank with­drawals, par­tic­u­lar­ly when sums ex­ceed $10,000. He ad­vised peo­ple to avoid stop­ping at su­per­mar­kets, phar­ma­cies, or fast-food out­lets be­fore go­ing home, as these paus­es give crim­i­nals the op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­ter­cept.

Ram­sey stressed that house­hold garbage can re­veal more in­for­ma­tion than peo­ple re­alise. Box­es from new elec­tron­ics, ap­pli­ance pack­ag­ing, and care­less con­ver­sa­tions out­side the home can in­ad­ver­tent­ly sig­nal wealth. “Break down the box­es. Don’t leave ad­ver­tise­ments for crim­i­nals out­side your gate,” he said.

Dig­i­tal fraud is an­oth­er grow­ing threat. Ram­sey said scam­mers are us­ing What­sApp mes­sages, fake e-mails, and spoofed bank­ing sites that look le­git­i­mate. He urged cit­i­zens to ex­am­ine URLs care­ful­ly, ig­nore un­so­licit­ed links, avoid on­line do­na­tions un­less ver­i­fied, and en­able re­al-time bank­ing alerts.  
The pro­fes­sion­al re­mind­ed the pub­lic that banks nev­er ask cus­tomers to join Zoom calls or re­quest codes over the phone.

Crim­i­nals study­ing habits

Crime Stop­pers di­rec­tor Dar­rin Carmichael echoed Ram­sey’s con­cerns, say­ing home in­va­sions re­main among the most dan­ger­ous crimes be­cause per­pe­tra­tors in­tend di­rect con­fronta­tion. Carmichael said crim­i­nals fre­quent­ly tar­get house­holds known to keep cash on hand, es­pe­cial­ly those op­er­at­ing small side busi­ness­es from home. In oth­er cas­es, he said, fam­i­lies who post their ad­dress­es for pick­ups or de­liv­er­ies in­crease their ex­po­sure, as crim­i­nals take note of who en­ters and leaves the home.

Carmichael said the rise in home in­va­sions dur­ing the pan­dem­ic did not fade once the coun­try re­opened. In­stead, the pat­tern per­sist­ed be­cause many cit­i­zens con­tin­ue to keep goods, gold, elec­tron­ics, or cash in their hous­es, be­liev­ing it is safer than de­posit­ing them. Crim­i­nals are ful­ly aware of this ten­den­cy, he said, and act ac­cord­ing­ly.

He ad­vised home­own­ers to se­cure gates, ver­i­fy iden­ti­ties be­fore open­ing doors, and lim­it the num­ber of valu­ables kept at home. He re­mind­ed the pub­lic that crim­i­nals pre­fer mo­ments when vic­tims are dis­tract­ed, such as un­load­ing gro­ceries, car­ry­ing mul­ti­ple items, or man­ag­ing chil­dren at the gate. The sim­ple act of paus­ing to open a gate with hands full, he said, can cre­ate the per­fect op­por­tu­ni­ty for at­tack­ers.

He sig­nalled that crim­i­nals al­so tar­get casi­no pa­trons leav­ing with win­nings, es­pe­cial­ly when in­di­vid­u­als cel­e­brate open­ly or re­turn to their ve­hi­cles alone. Some crim­i­nals fol­low vic­tims across mul­ti­ple lo­ca­tions be­fore strik­ing, of­ten choos­ing side roads or the gate of the vic­tim’s home.

Carmichael said busi­ness­es face height­ened risk dur­ing the Christ­mas rush, as crim­i­nals as­sume more cash is cir­cu­lat­ing. He urged busi­ness own­ers to re­view store lay­outs, avoid block­ing cam­era an­gles with dec­o­ra­tions, and en­sure that staff un­der­stand in­ter­nal pro­to­cols. He said even dec­o­ra­tions can be­come vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties if they ob­scure sight­lines or cre­ate blind spots.

He en­cour­aged re­tail­ers to po­si­tion se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel in vis­i­ble but ap­proach­able ways, even brand­ing them as cus­tomer-ser­vice staff if nec­es­sary. He said crim­i­nals of­ten scout stores in ad­vance, watch­ing whether em­ploy­ees are at­ten­tive, whether cash reg­is­ters over­flow, or whether cus­tomers leave with un­bagged high-val­ue items.

He em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of ro­tat­ing cash-de­posit rou­tines. Night­ly de­posits should vary in time, route and per­son­nel and should nev­er be done by one per­son alone.

He not­ed that in many cas­es, the crim­i­nals are not strangers but in­di­vid­u­als who have re­ceived in­side in­for­ma­tion, some­times un­in­ten­tion­al­ly, from staff.

Carmichael urged busi­ness­es to col­lab­o­rate with neigh­bour­ing stores, share sus­pi­cious-ac­tiv­i­ty footage, and adopt the kind of co­op­er­a­tion seen in neigh­bour­hood-watch groups. He said one busi­ness on a com­mer­cial strip can­not op­er­ate in iso­la­tion; if one es­tab­lish­ment is tar­get­ed, the en­tire area be­comes vul­ner­a­ble.

Both Ram­sey and Carmichael stressed that pub­lic safe­ty dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son re­quires height­ened aware­ness, smarter rou­tines, and com­mu­ni­ty col­lab­o­ra­tion. Crim­i­nals have be­come more strate­gic, they said, and the pub­lic must re­spond with equal strat­e­gy.