Po­lice say an in­crease in foot pa­trols in Port-of-Spain, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Char­lotte Street area, has re­sult­ed in a de­crease in rob­beries.

Back in Feb­ru­ary Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that sev­er­al Chi­nese es­tab­lish­ments on Char­lotte Street were tar­get­ed by ban­dits.

In three weeks, at least six Chi­nese es­tab­lish­ments had al­so been robbed by a group of six to ten men.

CCTV footage ob­tained of the rob­beries showed masked men walk­ing in­to the store and de­mand­ing the cashier open the reg­is­ter.

They then filled their pock­ets with the mon­ey and any close-by items like cig­a­rettes and al­co­hol.

Po­lice said sev­er­al ar­rests were made but there were no pos­i­tive iden­ti­fi­ca­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion, Neil Bran­don John in­for­ma­tion sug­gest­ed that some of the rob­bers were from neigh­bour­ing com­mu­ni­ties.

To pro­tect the busi­ness­es from more rob­beries, Chi­nese Em­bassy of­fi­cials met with the Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc Don­ald Ja­cob and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds be­tween Feb­ru­ary 19 and 20.

Af­ter that meet­ing, a de­ci­sion was made for Mu­nic­i­pal po­lice to col­lab­o­rate with the De­fence Force to con­duct foot pa­trols in an at­tempt to pro­tect busi­ness­es.

Bran­don John said this has caused the rob­beries to stop al­to­geth­er.

Guardian Me­dia was told that with­in the last month there have been de­liv­ery truck rob­beries on George Street.

But the Snr Supt for the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion said "de­tec­tions and pros­e­cu­tions" have been made.