Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Of­fi­cers of the Po­lice Cy­ber Crime Unit and the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) have launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the dis­ap­pear­ance of a smart­phone used as ev­i­dence, which lat­er “reap­peared” in the of­fice of the Fraud Squad weeks lat­er.

Po­lice said the de­vice—an iPhone 16 Pro Max—was one of sev­er­al smart­phones seized by Fraud Squad of­fi­cers dur­ing an an­ti-crime op­er­a­tion in ear­ly 2025.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the phones were con­fis­cat­ed be­cause they were be­lieved to have been pur­chased us­ing stolen cred­it card in­for­ma­tion.

Two men were ar­rest­ed dur­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion but were lat­er re­leased pend­ing fur­ther en­quiries.

Months lat­er, in De­cem­ber, of­fi­cers in­spect­ing a con­tain­er stored in the Fraud Squad of­fice dis­cov­ered that one of the de­vices was miss­ing. Sources said the store room is a sealed space, guard­ed by sen­tries day and night, and hous­es walkie-talkies, firearms and am­mu­ni­tion, ve­hi­cle keys, law books, and pris­on­er prop­er­ty.

A re­port was filed with the PSB, which sub­se­quent­ly seized sta­tion di­aries and du­ty books—records of of­fi­cers on du­ty on a giv­en day—ear­li­er this month as part of their in­ves­ti­ga­tion. In­ves­ti­ga­tors re­turned to the of­fice on Mon­day and con­fis­cat­ed ad­di­tion­al di­aries, sources con­firmed.

Sources lat­er re­port­ed that on Mon­day, of­fi­cers re­ceived an email from an un­known sender claim­ing the miss­ing phone had been placed in the first aid kit in the Fraud Squad of­fice at the Min­istry of Fi­nance build­ing. The cell­phone was lat­er re­cov­ered from the of­fice. Of­fi­cers of the Cy­ber Crime Unit are re­view­ing in­for­ma­tion on the de­vice to de­ter­mine whether it was used to make calls or send mes­sages as part of the in­quiry. Com­put­ers at the Fraud Squad of­fice are al­so be­ing ex­am­ined.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia through the TTPS Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit yes­ter­day, head of the Fraud Squad, Snr Supt Michael Jack­man, con­firmed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was un­der­way in­to an “ir­reg­u­lar­i­ty in­volv­ing an ex­hib­it” but de­clined to pro­vide fur­ther de­tails.

“As the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is on­go­ing and at a very sen­si­tive stage, fur­ther dis­clo­sure is not pos­si­ble at this time,” he said. “The TTPS re­mains com­mit­ted to ac­count­abil­i­ty and will make the ap­pro­pri­ate dis­clo­sures once the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is con­clud­ed.”

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad said the in­ci­dent, while ap­par­ent­ly iso­lat­ed and not part of a large-scale com­pro­mise of po­lice ev­i­dence col­lec­tion, high­light­ed the need to re­view se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures to pre­vent ev­i­dence tam­per­ing.

“It com­pro­mis­es the in­tegri­ty of ev­i­dence and the abil­i­ty of the po­lice to solve cas­es and bring them to suc­cess­ful pros­e­cu­tion,” he said. “If this oc­curs on a pe­ri­od­ic ba­sis, it sug­gests the need to re­view the sys­tems and pro­to­cols in place to en­sure there is no tam­per­ing of ev­i­dence, be­cause cas­es could fall apart in court if the chain of cus­tody can­not be ver­i­fied.”

Seep­er­sad al­so not­ed that while cer­tain as­pects of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion are ex­pect­ed to re­main con­fi­den­tial, it is im­por­tant for the pub­lic to be re­as­sured that the po­lice treat such in­ci­dents se­ri­ous­ly while up­hold­ing stan­dards of ac­count­abil­i­ty and pro­fes­sion­al­ism.