Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice for South, South West­ern and Cen­tral, Wayne Mys­tar, be­lieves they have made a ma­jor break­through in a home in­va­sion ring in the re­gion with the ar­rests of two sus­pects.

The 18-year-old sus­pects, from Pa­lo Seco and Fyz­abad, were ar­rest­ed on Thurs­day by of­fi­cers of the South West­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force (SWDTF) and Siparia CID in con­nec­tion with a vi­o­lent home in­va­sion in Fyz­abad on May 3.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, around 11 pm last Sat­ur­day, two masked men, one wield­ing a cut­lass, broke in­to the home of a 64-year-old woman and her 68-year-old hus­band, who is re­cov­er­ing from a stroke.

The el­der­ly cou­ple had been asleep when the as­sailants stormed in­to their bed­room, de­mand­ing mon­ey be­fore ran­sack­ing the premis­es. Dur­ing the at­tack, the male vic­tim was beat­en with a cut­lass, while the fe­male vic­tim was sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ed. The in­trud­ers fled with $5,000 in cash, $44,000 worth of jew­ellery, mo­bile phones, and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion doc­u­ments, in­clud­ing US trav­el pa­pers. Both vic­tims are dual cit­i­zens.

The as­sailants forced the woman to a near­by aban­doned house, where she was again sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ed. SWDTF con­duct­ed an in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tion, which led to the ar­rest of the two men be­lieved to be linked to sim­i­lar home in­va­sions in the re­gion.

“This was a heinous and cow­ard­ly act com­mit­ted against vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens,” said ACP Mys­tar in a press re­lease yes­ter­day. Com­mend­ing his of­fi­cers’ swift work, he added, “I want to as­sure the pub­lic that we are treat­ing this mat­ter with the high­est pri­or­i­ty. We be­lieve we have made a ma­jor break­through by dis­rupt­ing an or­gan­ised home in­va­sion ring op­er­at­ing in south­west Trinidad. We will dis­man­tle their op­er­a­tions, one cell at a time.”

He al­so en­cour­aged the pub­lic to re­main vig­i­lant and re­port sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty in their neigh­bour­hoods.

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion on this case or oth­er in­ci­dents is urged to con­tact the SWDTF, Siparia CID, or call 800-TIPS anony­mous­ly.

Safe­ty tips

Mys­tar list­ed sev­er­al safe­ty pre­cau­tions for mem­bers of the pub­lic, in­clud­ing:

*Se­cure all en­try points – Use dead­bolts, met­al bars, and re­in­force doors and win­dows.

*In­stall mo­tion-sen­sor lights and CCTV around your prop­er­ty.

*Don’t over­look the back and side en­trances – these are of­ten used by in­trud­ers.

*Avoid shar­ing trav­el plans or valu­ables on so­cial me­dia.

*Join or form a neigh­bour­hood watch group – com­mu­ni­ty vig­i­lance is key.

*In­stall a per­son­al safe­ty or pan­ic alarm app linked to TTPS or a trust­ed emer­gency con­tact.

*Re­port any sus­pi­cious per­sons or ve­hi­cles in your area im­me­di­ate­ly by call­ing 999 or your lo­cal po­lice sta­tion.