As part of the na­tion­al dri­ve to safe­guard the health of the Trinidad and To­ba­go pop­u­la­tion in the face of the glob­al COVID-19 out­break, the Min­istry of Health con­tin­ues to pro­vide up-to-date in­for­ma­tion on the coun­try’s sta­tus in this re­gard.

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) is mak­ing it clear that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­le­ga­tions of sus­pi­cious fi­nan­cial ac­tiv­i­ty at three banks in­volv­ing ACP Ir­win Hack­shaw is on­go­ing.
Up­on com­ple­tion of the PCA's in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the Au­thor­i­ty shall where deemed nec­es­sary, take ac­tion in ac­cor­dance with the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty Act.
In a re­lease is­sued to­day, the PCA said it not­ed a re­port in the Guardian News­pa­per dat­ed May 28 re­gard­ing the clo­sure of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in­to Hack­shaw fol­low­ing al­leged sus­pi­cious fi­nan­cial ac­tiv­i­ty.
Ref­er­ence is made to a PCA Press Re­lease dat­ed March 9, 2020 where pur­suant to Sec­tion 26 of the PCA Act the PCA 'has in­de­pen­dent­ly ini­ti­at­ed a two-fold in­ves­ti­ga­tion sur­round­ing re­ports of un­usu­al fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tions linked to Act­ing Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Hack­shaw; and the al­leged dis­sem­i­na­tion of "sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion" by po­lice of­fi­cers at­tached to the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau.'
The PCA stat­ed that if a crim­i­nal of­fence is es­tab­lished, it would be for­ward­ed to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion and oth­er rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers. It al­so dis­closed that it "may al­so make rec­om­men­da­tions to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice on the con­duct of of­fi­cers in pri­vate work-re­lat­ed busi­ness whilst be­ing em­ployed as a Po­lice Of­fi­cer. They may al­so make rec­om­men­da­tions on how po­lice col­lect do­na­tions from the pub­lic for al­leged po­lice events."
"The PCA con­sid­ers this a very se­ri­ous mat­ter and is work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to com­plete this in­ves­ti­ga­tion as it could po­ten­tial­ly have se­ri­ous im­pli­ca­tions for the se­nior of­fi­cer in­volved," the re­lease said.
Ac­cord­ing to the T&T Guardian ar­ti­cle this week, an in­tense three-month po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Hack­shaw fol­low­ing a news­pa­per re­port which claimed he had al­leged­ly been flagged for sus­pi­cious fi­nan­cial ac­tiv­i­ty at three banks, has been closed by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, with the of­fi­cer be­ing ex­on­er­at­ed from any crim­i­nal wrong­do­ing.
The in­ves­ti­ga­tion was con­duct­ed by ACP William Nurse of the Port-of-Spain and West­ern Di­vi­sion and was lat­er sub­mit­ted to Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith.
The news­pa­per re­port in March had al­leged Hack­shaw had been flagged for ac­tiv­i­ty dur­ing the pe­ri­od 2014-2019 and the three banks re­port­ed the mat­ter to the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit (FIU) of Trinidad and To­ba­go.
Hack­shaw has since tak­en le­gal ac­tion against the Trinidad Ex­press, claim­ing from day one he had been treat­ed un­fair­ly.
"In­sid­ers fa­mil­iar with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion said the re­port in­di­cat­ed that Hack­shaw on­ly had three main ac­counts in which do­na­tions to­talling un­der $.25m were giv­en for five po­lice events over the pe­ri­od 2014-2018. The re­port said Hack­shaw, who had al­so earned mon­ey pri­vate­ly from se­cu­ri­ty-re­lat­ed con­sul­tan­cy, had per­mis­sion to con­duct this ac­tiv­i­ty," the ar­ti­cle said.

The Galleons Pas­sage will sail this Fri­day, May 29th. The boat will leave Port-of Spain at 8:00 am and Scar­bor­ough at 4:00 pm.

A cou­ple in Bar­rack­pore has been charged with pos­ses­sion of a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion. Nicholas Latch­man, 30, and his com­mon-law wife, Shali­ni Silochan, 35 were ar­rest­ed yes­ter­day af­ter a gun was dis­cov­ered at their home on Ram­lal Trace, Rochard Dou­glas Road, Bar­rack­pore. Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, of­fi­cers of the Bar­rack­pore Po­lice sta­tion ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant at the cou­ple’s res­i­dence and found one (1) Coveneca shot­gun with a 12-gauge car­tridge and one (1) round of am­mu­ni­tion on the top of a wardrobe at the home. The cou­ple is due to ap­pear at the Princes Town Mag­is­trates’ Court to­day.

Two men have been charged with sex­u­al of­fences against mi­nors and will ap­pear be­fore a Mag­is­trates to­day in Port of Spain and Scar­bor­ough.
One man, a 36-year-old res­i­dent, of Mor­vant, was charged with four counts of sex­u­al touch­ing of a mi­nor and two counts of sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion of a mi­nor af­ter he was caught hav­ing in­ter­course with a 15-year-old fe­male. Up­on fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions, it was found that the man had been hav­ing an in­ti­mate re­la­tion­ship with the teen since Ju­ly 2019. The oth­er sus­pect, a 31-year-old PH dri­ver, of To­ba­go, was slapped with one count of sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion of a mi­nor, one count of kid­nap­ping and one count of false im­pris­on­ment. The charges were laid af­ter he sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ed the 12-year-old pas­sen­ger of his ve­hi­cle in a re­mote lo­ca­tion. The Child Pro­tec­tion Unit urges par­ents and guardians to ex­er­cise due dili­gence when it comes to the safe­ty of their charges. Dur­ing this pe­ri­od where chil­dren are at home and more sus­cep­ti­ble to preda­tors, do not leave chil­dren un­at­tend­ed or in the care of ques­tion­able adults.

A man po­lice de­scribed once as one of the most want­ed men in Trinidad and To­ba­go and a known gang­ster was shot and killed by po­lice ear­ly this morn­ing fol­low­ing a shootout in the Mor­vant area.

As part of the na­tion­al dri­ve to safe­guard the health of the Trinidad and To­ba­go pop­u­la­tion in the face of the glob­al COVID-19 out­break, the Min­istry of Health con­tin­ues to pro­vide up-to-date in­for­ma­tion on the coun­try’s sta­tus in this re­gard.

An in­tense three-month po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to ACP Ir­win Hack­shaw, fol­low­ing a news­pa­per re­port which claimed he had al­leged­ly been flagged for sus­pi­cious fi­nan­cial ac­tiv­i­ty at three banks, has been closed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice with the of­fi­cer be­ing ex­on­er­at­ed from any crim­i­nal wrong­do­ing.

Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan says the de­mer­it points sys­tem has fi­nal­ly been rolled out at a cost of $12 mil­lion, which is sig­nif­i­cant­ly less than what Gov­ern­ment an­tic­i­pat­ed.

Princes Town res­i­dents say they love their MP Bar­ry Padarath but feel hurt that he aban­doned them dur­ing COVID-19 lock­down.

The moth­er of a teenag­er who dis­ap­peared in No­vem­ber 2018 be­lieves she spot­ted a girl with a strong re­sem­blance to her daugh­ter in a pho­to of peo­ple res­cued from a hu­man traf­fick­ing camp in Venezuela on Tues­day.

While many peo­ple called for the gov­ern­ment to use a heavy hand to deal with the COVID-19 threat, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day said his gov­ern­ment chose to in­stead trust the pop­u­la­tion to do the right thing, and he said that faith was re­paid.