An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Hours af­ter se­nior of­fi­cials of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) an­nounced that a spe­cial task force had been as­sem­bled to in­ves­ti­gate claims of ex­tor­tion, a Ch­agua­nas busi­ness­man re­port­ed re­ceiv­ing sev­er­al calls by per­sons de­mand­ing mon­ey and threat­en­ing vi­o­lence if they weren’t paid.

The 55-year-old vic­tim, of Long­denville, who op­er­ates a spare parts and ac­ces­sories busi­ness, re­port­ed to po­lice that be­tween 8.24 am and 9.15 am on Sep­tem­ber 7, a rel­a­tive in pos­ses­sion of his phone re­ceived calls from three un­known num­bers by per­sons warn­ing them to move out or they would cause dam­age to prop­er­ty if they failed to pay the monies.

The vic­tim lat­er re­port­ed the ex­tor­tion at­tempts to the po­lice, fol­low­ing which in­ves­ti­ga­tions were ini­ti­at­ed by the Cen­tral Gang Unit and the Cy­ber Crimes Unit.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Port-of-Spain, last Fri­day, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent, North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, Richard Smith, warned that a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach had been adopt­ed to­wards per­sons en­gaged in such prac­tices.

He shocked the na­tion af­ter re­veal­ing that fol­low­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in his dis­trict, three per­sons, in­clud­ing two eight-year-old chil­dren, had been ar­rest­ed af­ter they were found to be en­gag­ing in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

At the time, Smith said, “The de­scrip­tion of the three per­sons who went to ex­tort or de­mand mon­ey from a par­tic­u­lar busi­ness­man was one per­son be­tween the ages of 17 and 22, and two around the age of eight years.”

Smith ex­plained that call­ing some­one to ex­tort funds was a crime la­belled De­mand­ing Mon­ey by Men­ace; and that when funds switched hands, this was now la­belled a rob­bery.

In 2022, a to­tal of 16 re­ports of de­mand­ing mon­ey by men­ace were re­ceived, of which sev­en were solved and per­sons ar­rest­ed.
The num­ber of re­ports bal­looned to 162 in 2023; with a to­tal of 19 re­ports so far for 2024.