Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has out­lined in­creased po­lice op­er­a­tions in Cen­tral Trinidad fol­low­ing a spate of mur­ders, while de­clin­ing to say whether any­one has been ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the killings.

He said the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) was con­duct­ing in­tel­li­gence op­er­a­tions, tar­get­ed pa­trols and in­ves­ti­ga­tions to iden­ti­fy those re­spon­si­ble.

He al­so dis­closed that law en­force­ment of­fi­cials were en­gag­ing banks to ad­dress the risk of cus­tomers be­ing tar­get­ed af­ter mak­ing large cash with­drawals.

Alexan­der was re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Op­po­si­tion Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les in Par­lia­ment, who raised con­cerns about the mur­ders in Cen­tral Trinidad, in­clud­ing the killing of a for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer and the dou­ble mur­der of two women. Gon­za­les asked what ur­gent mea­sures were be­ing tak­en to pro­tect cit­i­zens.

Alexan­der said he had been ad­vised that the TTPS was pur­su­ing sev­er­al lines of ac­tion but de­clined to dis­close spe­cif­ic op­er­a­tional de­tails.

“For op­er­a­tional rea­sons, I would not dis­close specif­i­cal­ly what the TTPS in­ten­tions are. But as soon as those per­sons are iden­ti­fied, it will be dealt with in ac­cor­dance with the law.”

Asked whether any­one had been ar­rest­ed for ques­tion­ing in con­nec­tion with the crimes, Alexan­der said in­ves­ti­ga­tors were fol­low­ing every lead but did not want to dis­close whether an ar­rest had been made.

ATM noise could

alert crim­i­nals

Gon­za­les al­so asked what ad­di­tion­al mea­sures are be­ing im­ple­ment­ed to com­bat the re­port­ed in­crease in rob­beries and home in­va­sions, in­clud­ing rob­beries of cit­i­zens fol­low­ing bank with­drawals.

Alexan­der re­spond­ed by say­ing, “There’s been no in­crease in rob­beries or home in­va­sions. How­ev­er, per­sons con­tin­ue to seize the op­por­tu­ni­ty from time to time to re­lieve per­sons of their valu­ables.”

He said law en­force­ment of­fi­cials were en­gag­ing the bank­ing sec­tor to ad­dress se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns sur­round­ing large cash with­drawals.

Alexan­der point­ed to the noise made by ma­chines count­ing and dis­pens­ing cash, which he said could alert crim­i­nals to the amount be­ing with­drawn.

“As a re­sult of that, it’s a to­tal risk. Un­der­stand­ing that this ma­chine, if per­sons are smart, they’re able to cal­cu­late ex­act­ly how much mon­ey some­one is re­ceiv­ing from the ma­chine to leave the bank. So law en­force­ment is con­tin­u­ing to en­gage the fi­nan­cial sys­tem with the in­ten­tion to have this rec­ti­fied.”

He al­so urged cit­i­zens and busi­ness own­ers to be cau­tious about shar­ing in­for­ma­tion on their bank­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing with em­ploy­ees.