Man arrested after dating app robbery

Of­fi­cers of the North-East­ern Di­vi­sion have ar­rest­ed a 20-year-old man fol­low­ing a rob­bery with vi­o­lence in­ci­dent in the San Juan dis­trict yes­ter­day.

Po­lice re­port­ed that at 6:30 pm on Thurs­day 19 Feb­ru­ary 2026, a man was at the cor­ner of Third Av­enue and East­ern Main Road, Barataria, where he met a man with whom he had con­nect­ed a few days ear­li­er via an on­line dat­ing ap­pli­ca­tion. The two pro­ceed­ed north along Third Av­enue to Mis­sion Road Ex­ten­sion, San Juan, where the vic­tim ob­served two oth­er men stand­ing at the side of the road­way.

Up­on reach­ing the area, the three men—one of whom was armed with a firearm—an­nounced a rob­bery. The as­sailants re­lieved the vic­tim of two cel­lu­lar phones and cash, with a to­tal val­ue of $1,869.

Dur­ing the in­ci­dent, the vic­tim was phys­i­cal­ly as­sault­ed and pushed against a gal­vanised fence be­fore the three sus­pects es­caped on foot.

Of­fi­cers of the San Juan Po­lice Sta­tion re­spond­ed prompt­ly.

While con­duct­ing en­quiries in the dis­trict, of­fi­cers ob­served a man fit­ting the de­scrip­tion of one of the sus­pects. The sus­pect was ar­rest­ed and con­veyed to the San Juan Po­lice Sta­tion as en­quiries con­tin­ued.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing, as of­fi­cers con­tin­ue en­quiries to iden­ti­fy and ap­pre­hend the oth­er sus­pects in­volved.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice is urg­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to ex­er­cise cau­tion when meet­ing in­di­vid­u­als known on­ly through on­line plat­forms, and to re­port any sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty to the po­lice by call­ing 999, 555, 911 or 800-TIPS.