Two arrested in anti-extortion exercise

Two men were ar­rest­ed dur­ing an an­ti-ex­tor­tion ex­er­cise con­duct­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion on Tues­day.

Po­lice said the op­er­a­tion took place be­tween 2:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. as of­fi­cers of the An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit car­ried out a tar­get­ed ex­er­cise aimed at dis­rupt­ing ac­tiv­i­ties linked to ex­tor­tion.

Dur­ing the ex­er­cise, of­fi­cers ar­rest­ed two in­di­vid­u­als for the of­fence of de­mand­ing mon­ey with men­aces. Po­lice iden­ti­fied them as a 32-year-old man of Hall Street, Todd’s Road, Ca­paro and a 38-year-old man of Todd’s Road, Ca­paro Val­ley Road, Bras­so.

Po­lice re­port­ed that the ex­er­cise formed part of on­go­ing ef­forts to ad­dress re­ports of ex­tor­tion with­in com­mu­ni­ties in the di­vi­sion.

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Smith co­or­di­nat­ed the ex­er­cise. Sgt Bac­chus, Cpl Baksh and Cpl Ram­per­sad su­per­vised of­fi­cers who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the op­er­a­tion.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice said it will con­tin­ue op­er­a­tions tar­get­ing per­sons in­volved in ex­tor­tion and re­lat­ed of­fences.

Po­lice al­so urged mem­bers of the pub­lic to re­port in­ci­dents of ex­tor­tion and pro­vide in­for­ma­tion that may as­sist in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

The sus­pects re­main in cus­tody as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.

The TTPS said in­for­ma­tion can be shared through of­fi­cial chan­nels, in­clud­ing po­lice sta­tions and hot­lines, as part of ef­forts to ad­dress crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

Of­fi­cials stat­ed that pub­lic co­op­er­a­tion re­mains a key part of law en­force­ment op­er­a­tions across di­vi­sions.