The An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has re­ceived 41 re­ports since the year be­gan, from vic­tims who are be­ing “taxed” by un­scrupu­lous per­sons look­ing to make a quick and easy dol­lar.

This was re­vealed dur­ing a meet­ing at the St Au­gus­tine South Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Free­man Road, St Au­gus­tine, on Wednes­day by As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Crime, Richard Smith. He said they had so far man­aged to achieve a 61 per cent de­tec­tion rate.

But de­spite this, he ap­pealed to peo­ple to come for­ward and re­port when they en­coun­tered in­stances of ex­tor­tion, as he said the po­lice can­not act on hearsay but re­ports from vic­tims of such crimes.

Defin­ing ex­tor­tion as a crime of fear, Smith said the act of de­mand­ing mon­ey by men­ace has al­ways been on the law books, but re­al­ly be­gan flour­ish­ing af­ter the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup.

He claimed such de­mands had been kept on the “down low” but re­cent­ly re-sur­faced un­der the de­f­i­n­i­tion of ex­tor­tion. Smith said the An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit had been qui­et­ly go­ing about earn­ing the trust of the pub­lic.

Re­gard­ing the 164 re­ports re­ceived in 2023, the ACP ex­plained that one cou­ple had been charged with 133 counts of de­mand­ing mon­ey by men­ace from a bar­ber who had bor­rowed $6,000 and was lat­er black­mailed in­to re­pay­ing more than $100,000.

Be­tween Oc­to­ber and De­cem­ber 2024, the unit re­ceived 33 re­ports of ex­tor­tion, with a 17 per cent de­tec­tion rate.

Smith ad­vised cit­i­zens that ex­tor­tion was al­so a form of bul­ly­ing em­ployed by per­sons who glean in­for­ma­tion in var­i­ous medi­ums.

Sgt Bar­ry Bac­chus of the An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit out­lined some of the ways crim­i­nals ob­tain sen­si­tive and con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion which can be used as a tool to ex­tort mon­ey.

He too cau­tioned against the ills of so­cial me­dia as he said peo­ple make them­selves tar­gets by re­veal­ing too much on so­cial me­dia by want­i­ng to “flam” their lat­est pur­chas­es; and al­so by post­ing at­ten­dance at so­cial events, mak­ing it easy for crim­i­nals to track their move­ments and in­ter­ac­tions.

Bac­chus al­so urged cit­i­zens to pay at­ten­tion to where they took elec­tron­ic de­vices such as lap­tops and cell phones to be re­paired, as he said this was one place where crim­i­nals could copy sen­si­tive and pri­vate pic­tures and videos which can be used lat­er on to black­mail them.

In ad­di­tion, he ad­vised busi­ness own­ers/op­er­a­tors to keep con­fi­den­tial doc­u­ments un­der lock and key, as he said the in­for­ma­tion con­tained there­in could be used against them by those look­ing to ben­e­fit.

Draw­ing smiles and nods from those present as he al­so cau­tioned about trust­ing friends and fam­i­lies with fi­nan­cial in­for­ma­tion such as bank­ing de­tails and ac­counts. Both Smith and Bac­chus agreed this was a group that need­ed to be care­ful­ly mon­i­tored as not all smiles and plat­i­tudes were gen­uine.

Snr Supt of the North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, Michael Pierre re­ferred to the cur­rent prac­tice as a plague be­ing per­pe­trat­ed across T&T by or­gan­ised crime groups.

Stat­ing it was in­cum­bent on the po­lice to ed­u­cate res­i­dents and busi­ness own­ers on what to look for and how to re­spond should they find them­selves in such sit­u­a­tions, he ap­pealed to cit­i­zens to speak up as their si­lence would not aid in the ar­rest and pros­e­cu­tion of those en­gaged in such prac­tices.

Mean­while, St Au­gus­tine MP and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter, Khadi­jah Ameen, who was al­so in at­ten­dance, re­vealed the reser­va­tions she had when first ap­proached by of­fi­cers from the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion as they sought to roll out the Hand-In-Hand (HIH) ini­tia­tive to re­build the frac­tured com­mu­ni­ty along the Train Line, Free­man Road, St Au­gus­tine, two years ago.

Re­call­ing her ef­forts to con­vince res­i­dents who had be­come vic­tims of crime dur­ing that time to trust and work with the of­fi­cers, she said while it had paid off, it had been painful to watch young peo­ple from the area be­come school drop-outs and miss out on sport­ing and ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties; re­sult­ing in them be­ing eas­i­ly re­cruit­ed by crim­i­nal gangs.

She ad­mit­ted that a hard ap­proach was need­ed in some in­stances, Ameen al­so praised those re­spon­si­ble for the HIH ini­tia­tive which had demon­strat­ed the ef­fec­tive­ness of soft polic­ing.

Turn­ing her at­ten­tion to how the au­thor­i­ties can help to con­tin­ue re­duc­ing crime not just in St Au­gus­tine but across the coun­try, she promised, “We will see more mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers be­ing re­cruit­ed.”

Pledg­ing as­sis­tance wher­ev­er it was need­ed, the out-spo­ken MP made a plug for the HIH ini­tia­tive to be al­lo­cat­ed more re­sources as she urged se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials present to con­sid­er the trans­for­ma­tive work be­ing done.