Da­reece Po­lo

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Close to 700 ve­hi­cles were re­port­ed stolen across the coun­try dur­ing the first five months of this year, ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics pro­vid­ed by of­fi­cers of the Stolen Ve­hi­cle Squad of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Al­though no sta­tis­tics were pro­vid­ed for 2022, the sit­u­a­tion was de­scribed as wor­ry­ing by act­ing As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of the TTPS Crim­i­nal Di­vi­sion Kent Ghisyawan, In­spec­tor Lloyd Lazarus and Sergeant Sha­la Julien on Thurs­day.

De­spite the high num­ber of cars re­port­ed stolen, less than 50 per cent have been re­cov­ered, of­fi­cers re­vealed.

“From Jan­u­ary 1 to June 1, 2023, there were 691 in­ci­dents of re­port­ed stolen ve­hi­cles. From these in­ci­dents, we had a 39 per cent re­cov­ery rate of these said stolen ve­hi­cles,” Sgt Julien said dur­ing the TTPS me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain.

The North­ern Di­vi­sion ac­count­ed for 34 per cent of the stolen ve­hi­cles while the Cen­tral and North-east­ern Di­vi­sions ac­count­ed for 18 and 12 per cent, re­spec­tive­ly.

Of­fi­cers said crim­i­nals have shown a pref­er­ence for Nis­san Ti­idas, mak­ing them the num­ber one stolen ve­hi­cle in the coun­try this year, thus sur­pass­ing the Toy­ota Aqua which held the po­si­tion last year.

“In re­spect to the most tar­get­ed ve­hi­cles, they are as fol­lows – Nis­san Ti­i­da rep­re­sent­ed the high­est amount fol­lowed by Toy­ota Aqua, there­after Nis­san AD Wag­on, along­side the Nis­san Wingroad. The Toy­ota Field­er al­so came in as well. In the area of the vans, we had Kia K2700 and the Hyundai H100 be­ing amongst the high­est tar­get­ed,” Sgt Julien said.

The TTPS has since ramped up stolen ve­hi­cle ex­er­cis­es, which have so far led to the ar­rest of five peo­ple in con­nec­tion with a car theft ring in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion.

More im­por­tant­ly, car own­ers are once again be­ing urged to safe­guard their ve­hi­cles by in­vest­ing in se­cu­ri­ty fea­tures such as GPS, shift locks, in­te­ri­or mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems or a GSM car alarm.

“Con­sid­er a GSM car alarm. This al­lows a mes­sage to be sent to the sub­scriber if the ve­hi­cle is bro­ken in­to and the more pop­u­lar op­tion is to in­stall a GPS track­ing sys­tem which al­lows the own­er to know the pre­cise lo­ca­tion of the ve­hi­cle. And there are some fea­tures where the ve­hi­cle can be shut down re­mote­ly,” Sgt Julien ex­plained.

The po­lice sergeant al­so high­light­ed a video which has been cir­cu­lat­ing on­line that was cap­tured by a Val­sayn res­i­dent. It showed neigh­bours chas­ing away car thieves us­ing air horns. He said neigh­bour­hood watch groups such as this one can re­duce the num­ber of ve­hi­cles be­ing re­port­ed stolen in the coun­try.

He al­so de­nied that any re­ports have been re­ceived by the unit on de­vices be­ing used to dis­able cars. He was re­spond­ing to a voice record­ing in which a man al­leged that thieves had been dri­ving in a pan­el van us­ing a de­vice to dis­able locks, then of­fer­ing as­sis­tance to un­sus­pect­ing vic­tims.

Sgt Julien urged peo­ple to “avoid ca­su­al strangers who may be over-en­thu­si­as­tic to help” and in­stead con­tact the po­lice.

The Stolen Ve­hi­cles Squad can be reached 627-0729.