An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials be­lieve they have dis­man­tled a ma­jor ex­tor­tion out­fit op­er­at­ing in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, fol­low­ing a sting op­er­a­tion in which one man was killed and an­oth­er ar­rest­ed on Thurs­day. A third man es­caped from the sting but of­fi­cials as­sured that an ar­rest is im­mi­nent.

The get­away ve­hi­cle was lat­er found aban­doned in Char­lieville, Ch­agua­nas.

The man killed by po­lice was iden­ti­fied as Jaden Pierre, 26, of Hi­bis­cus Dri­ve, Ed­in­burgh 500, Ch­agua­nas.

The An­ti Ex­tor­tion Unit (AEU), along with the Home In­va­sion Team (HIT), ini­ti­at­ed the sting on Thurs­day in Tu­na­puna, af­ter a busi­ness own­er re­port­ed he had been co­erced in­to pay­ing a to­tal of $1,800 over a three-week pe­ri­od to an in­di­vid­ual who had is­sued de­mands via tele­phone and lat­er came to col­lect the mon­ey in per­son. The vic­tim said the sus­pect fur­ther de­mand­ed a month­ly pay­ment of $3,000, be­gin­ning on Thurs­day.

Based on this in­for­ma­tion, of­fi­cers mount­ed a co­or­di­nat­ed op­er­a­tion at the busi­ness lo­ca­tion, where marked cash was pre­pared for the sus­pect to col­lect.

Whilst await­ing the sus­pect’s ar­rival, the vic­tim re­ceived an ad­di­tion­al de­mand for $500 to be in­clud­ed in the pay­ment.

The sus­pect al­leged­ly ar­rived at the lo­ca­tion at Basilon Street, Tu­na­puna, around 4.15 pm in a black Hyundai Tuc­son.

Po­lice said as the sus­pect col­lect­ed the en­ve­lope with the cash and walked out of the busi­ness, he was ap­proached by two AEU of­fi­cers who iden­ti­fied them­selves. It was al­leged the sus­pect pulled out a gun and point­ed it at the of­fi­cers, who re­spond­ed by re­turn­ing fire. The po­lice took the in­jured man to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, where he was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.

Of­fi­cers re­cov­ered the en­ve­lope con­tain­ing the $3,500 in cash, along with a firearm at the scene.

The sec­ond sus­pect, who is in his 20s and from Cen­tral, was ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers out­side the busi­ness as he wait­ed on the de­ceased to emerge. The get­away dri­ver fled the scene up­on wit­ness­ing the dead­ly in­ci­dent. His dra­mat­ic es­cape left three ve­hi­cle own­ers af­fect­ed, as he re­port­ed­ly dam­aged their ve­hi­cles dur­ing the po­lice chase.

Head of the AEU, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Richard Smith, yes­ter­day ap­pealed to peo­ple who have been vic­tims of ex­tor­tion to come for­ward with in­for­ma­tion that could lead to ad­di­tion­al charges be­ing laid against the sus­pect in cus­tody.

Con­firm­ing they had wit­nessed an in­crease in ex­tor­tion-re­lat­ed mat­ters since the year be­gan, Smith said the ma­jor­i­ty of them oc­curred in the North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion (NCD), with many of the vic­tims com­ing from the Tu­na­puna dis­trict.

“We need the vic­tims who may have fall­en prey to per­sons op­er­at­ing these ex­tor­tion rings to come and talk to us. Trust us. Give us the in­for­ma­tion so we can help bring these per­sons to jus­tice and put a stop to their un­law­ful and il­le­gal de­mands,” Smith said.

Asked what lever­age the sus­pect had been us­ing to in­tim­i­date the vic­tim in­to pay­ing, Smith said, “They are just us­ing fear to scare peo­ple. And be­cause every­body is fright­ened now, they are de­cid­ing to pay, but we want to put a stop to this, so we need the pub­lic to work with us.”