Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice in the Stolen Ve­hi­cles Squad have re­port­ed a sig­nif­i­cant de­cline in ve­hi­cle thefts so far this year com­pared with the same pe­ri­od in 2025. How­ev­er, they con­tin­ue to urge ve­hi­cle own­ers and le­git­i­mate busi­ness­es to re­main cau­tious and vig­i­lant, warn­ing that the trade in stolen ve­hi­cles per­sists de­spite the low­er fig­ures.

At a week­ly me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing on Sackville Street yes­ter­day, In­sp Ma­jid Khan cit­ed da­ta com­piled by the TTPS Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis (CA­PA) branch. Be­tween Jan­u­ary 1 and Oc­to­ber 1, there were 578 re­ports of lar­ce­ny of mo­tor ve­hi­cles, com­pared with 690 for the same pe­ri­od last year.

Lar­ce­ny of mo­tor ve­hi­cles refers to the theft of cars that have been left parked or un­at­tend­ed.

A more sub­stan­tial de­crease was record­ed in rob­beries in­volv­ing ve­hi­cles. As of Oc­to­ber 1, there had been 185 re­ports for the year, com­pared with 374 for the same pe­ri­od in 2025.

Khan said those rob­beries rep­re­sent­ed a loss of $57 mil­lion. They in­volve ve­hi­cles be­ing stolen af­ter crim­i­nals con­front their own­ers and take them at gun­point or by oth­er force­ful means.

The North-Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, which in­cludes St Joseph, Tu­na­puna and Arou­ca, had the high­est num­ber of ve­hi­cle theft re­ports so far this year, with 123.

The Cen­tral Di­vi­sion record­ed 95, while the North-East­ern Di­vi­sion, which in­cludes Mor­vant, Barataria, San Juan, Blan­chisseuse and Las Cuevas, record­ed 66.

Khan said that while the sta­tis­tics were en­cour­ag­ing, ve­hi­cle own­ers still need­ed to be cau­tious.

Act­ing ASP Lloyd Lazarus said crim­i­nals used dif­fer­ent tac­tics to steal ve­hi­cles di­rect­ly from own­ers and to take un­at­tend­ed cars.

“The per­pe­tra­tors use the op­por­tu­ni­ty to tar­get their vic­tims most times when they’re reach­ing home late at night, parked in dark ar­eas. Those are re­al­ly the sit­u­a­tions that oc­cur when rob­bery oc­curs.

“With re­spect to the lar­ce­ny mo­tor ve­hi­cles, you find at the di­vi­sions there are peo­ple park­ing on the road­way, so, like at HDC de­vel­op­ments where there is no park­ing per se at the com­pound, you have to park on the road, so ve­hi­cles are stolen in those cir­cum­stances,” he said.

Lazarus was asked about peo­ple who of­fer to “keep watch” over pa­trons’ cars out­side large Car­ni­val par­ties and events. He said he had no in­for­ma­tion on whether such in­di­vid­u­als were in­volved in ve­hi­cle thefts, but urged own­ers to se­cure their ve­hi­cles with in­ter­nal mech­a­nisms and GPS, if pos­si­ble.

“You can go to some old-time meth­ods and in­vest in a gear shift lock, a foot brake lock. The is­sue is ve­hi­cle se­cu­ri­ty needs to be ad­dressed by ve­hi­cle own­ers as well. The po­lice will have their part to play with re­spect to con­duct­ing pa­trols and op­er­a­tions to en­sure their safe­ty as well,” he said.

Lazarus said a stolen ve­hi­cle could be stripped for parts with­in hours or days, de­pend­ing on the crim­i­nals in­volved.

He said stolen ve­hi­cles were some­times left in ar­eas known as “cool-down spots”, where GPS sig­nals were weak, to pre­vent crim­i­nals from be­ing found with the ve­hi­cles if po­lice tracked them.

Asked whether seem­ing­ly le­git­i­mate au­to-parts re­tail­ers and re­pair shops were im­pli­cat­ed in the stolen-ve­hi­cle trade, Lazarus said peo­ple had been ar­rest­ed and charged in con­nec­tion with such crimes.

“While not want­i­ng to speak to a par­tic­u­lar in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the Stolen Ve­hi­cles (Squad) have in fact con­duct­ed sev­er­al op­er­a­tions tar­get­ing used-car deal­ers, used-parts sales, and we have been able to suc­cess­ful­ly dis­man­tle about four of those op­er­a­tions based on the in­tel­li­gence and in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­duct­ed, so those per­sons have been charged and are be­fore the courts,” he said.

Lazarus urged the pub­lic and le­git­i­mate busi­ness­es to buy ve­hi­cles di­rect­ly from reg­is­tered own­ers and avoid third-par­ty ven­dors. He said the Stolen Ve­hi­cles Squad could con­duct back­ground checks to de­ter­mine whether a ve­hi­cle had been re­port­ed stolen.

The Nis­san Ti­i­da re­mained the ve­hi­cle most sought by crim­i­nals, Lazarus said, cit­ing the rel­a­tive ease with which it could be stolen if un­se­cured. The Nis­san AD Wag­on, Hon­da City and Hon­da Vezel were al­so among the pre­ferred mod­els.