Teen charged after $41,000 in shoes, phones stolen

An 18-year-old San­gre Grande man has been charged with shop break­ing and lar­ce­ny af­ter more than $41,000 worth of shoes, cell phones and a lap­top were stolen from a busi­ness in Va­len­cia last week.

The ac­cused, Eli­jah An­drews, was charged fol­low­ing an in­tel­li­gence-led po­lice op­er­a­tion in Curepe on Fri­day, Oc­to­ber 16.

Three oth­er men, aged 20, 22 and 24, were al­so ar­rest­ed dur­ing the op­er­a­tion. One is a res­i­dent of Ari­ma, while the oth­er two are from San­gre Grande.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, the in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­gan on Wednes­day, Oc­to­ber 14, when a busi­ness­man re­port­ed that his premis­es in Va­len­cia had been bro­ken in­to and sev­er­al items stolen.

The stolen goods in­clud­ed 14 pairs of sneak­ers, 10 cell phones and an HP lap­top, with the to­tal val­ue es­ti­mat­ed at more than $41,000.

Among the items re­port­ed stolen were iPhones, Sam­sung cell phones, ASICS sneak­ers, Nike Air Max and P-6000 sneak­ers.

Po­lice re­viewed CCTV footage as part of their in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­fore con­duct­ing the op­er­a­tion in the Curepe area.

Act­ing on in­for­ma­tion ob­tained dur­ing the ex­er­cise, of­fi­cers ar­rest­ed the four men.

Dur­ing the op­er­a­tion, po­lice re­cov­ered two lap­tops, four iPhones and oth­er items be­lieved to be con­nect­ed to re­ports of sim­i­lar of­fences in the San­gre Grande dis­trict.

A stolen iPhone linked to the Va­len­cia busi­ness break-in was al­so found in the pos­ses­sion of one of the sus­pects.

Of­fi­cers al­so im­pound­ed a sil­ver Kia Cer­a­to as part of the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Po­lice said en­quiries con­tin­ued fol­low­ing the ar­rests, even­tu­al­ly re­sult­ing in An­drews be­ing charged with shop break­ing and lar­ce­ny.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion is con­tin­u­ing as of­fi­cers seek to de­ter­mine whether the sus­pects may be linked to oth­er re­port­ed of­fences.

The op­er­a­tion was co­or­di­nat­ed by Act­ing Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Eti­enne, Act­ing Su­per­in­ten­dent Rus­sell, Act­ing In­spec­tor Harp­er and Act­ing Sergeant [name not pro­vid­ed in the po­lice re­lease].

Po­lice have not in­di­cat­ed whether charges are ex­pect­ed to be laid against the three oth­er men ar­rest­ed dur­ing the ex­er­cise.