Four peo­ple have been con­vict­ed of steal­ing 169 so­lar bat­ter­ies be­long­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC), af­ter an ex­ten­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tion by a joint task force be­tween the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and the T&TEC Es­tate Po­lice.

The lights were stolen from 43 poles along the Man­zanil­la Road.

Bry­den Per­sad and Au­d­ho Ra­mad­har of Ker­na­ham Vil­lage, Ma­yaro along with Di­nesh Per­sad of Nar­i­va Road, Man­zanil­la plead­ed guilty to the of­fence of lar­ce­ny by find­ing, while George Al­leyne, al­so of Nar­i­va Road, plead­ed guilty to the charges of re­ceiv­ing, and lar­ce­ny by find­ing.

On June 10, 169 De­ka so­lar 12-volt bat­ter­ies were re­port­ed by T&TEC Se­cu­ri­ty Of­fi­cers to the Ma­yaro Po­lice Sta­tion as be­ing stolen from along the Man­zanil­la Road.

The bat­ter­ies pow­ered so­lar LED street­lights along the “Man­zanil­la stretch” and were re­moved from 43 poles.

The lights were in­stalled in 2018 to im­prove road safe­ty by fa­cil­i­tat­ing greater vis­i­bil­i­ty for mo­torists at night.

T&TEC said the theft of the bat­ter­ies com­pro­mised the safe­ty of com­muters and dri­vers on this heav­i­ly used road and in­creased the chances of ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dents, which could lead to se­ri­ous in­jury and/or loss of life.

Fol­low­ing en­quiries by the task force cre­at­ed by the Se­nior Supt Joseph Chan­dool of the East­ern Di­vi­sion, sev­er­al search war­rants were ex­e­cut­ed and in­ter­views con­duct­ed, fol­low­ing which in­struc­tions were giv­en on Sep­tem­ber 5 to for­mal­ly charge the four in­di­vid­u­als.

They ap­peared vir­tu­al­ly be­fore Mag­is­trate Ava Van­den­burg-Bai­ley at the Ma­yaro Mag­is­trates’ Court on Sep­tem­ber 6 and were fined.

If they fail to pay, they would serve three months of hard labour.

Di­nesh Per­sad was al­so or­dered to pay T&TEC the cost of one bat­tery.

The task force com­prised Ma­yaro CID/TF, the East­ern Di­vi­sion Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Unit un­der Ag Sgt Ni­am Mo­hammed and T&TEC.

In­sp Dean Richards, (Ag) Sgt Arnold Cam­bridge and Ag W.E Cpl Lau­ren John rep­re­sent­ed T&TEC, un­der Head of Se­cu­ri­ty Har­ri­lal Ramde­war.

In a re­lease is­sued on Tues­day, T&TEC re­mind­ed mem­bers of the pub­lic that, pur­suant to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion Act, Chap­ter 54:70, it is a crim­i­nal of­fence to tam­per with the Com­mis­sion’s elec­tric­i­ty in­stal­la­tions.

The Com­mis­sion said it will in­ves­ti­gate any re­ports of tam­per­ing and/or theft and bring le­gal ac­tion against those found guilty.

It al­so warned the pub­lic against car­ry­ing out such acts, which can cause se­ri­ous in­jury and the po­ten­tial loss of life.

Cit­i­zens who are aware of il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties are asked to con­tact

T&TEC’s Se­cu­ri­ty De­part­ment at 663-8832 ext 2388/ 2386.