Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

A se­ries of ear­ly morn­ing po­lice ex­er­cis­es led to the seizure of unau­tho­rised video cam­eras, which of­fi­cers sus­pect may have been used in mon­i­tor­ing their pa­trols and the move­ments of ri­val crim­i­nal gangs.

The ex­er­cis­es, which be­gan at around 3 am, in­volved of­fi­cers of the Besson Street CID, the Port-of-Spain Task Force, the In­ter Agency Task Force (IATF), the Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB) and the T&T Reg­i­ment. The joint unit vis­it­ed sev­er­al ar­eas on Pro­duc­tion Av­enue and lat­er Pi­o­neer Dri­ve, where there had been com­mu­ni­ty vi­o­lence re­cent­ly, fol­low­ing a brawl among res­i­dents on Car­ni­val Mon­day (March 3).

As has been a cus­tom when they are go­ing in­to “hotspot” com­mu­ni­ties, the of­fi­cers in­vit­ed a T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) crew to check for il­le­gal elec­tric­i­ty con­nec­tions, hav­ing no­ticed such ac­tiv­i­ty as a trend in such ar­eas.

As po­lice searched sev­er­al hous­es, the T&TEC tech­ni­cians in­deed found il­le­gal con­nec­tions and be­gan dis­con­nect­ing elec­tric­i­ty ca­bles and wires to the of­fend­ing prop­er­ties.

Dur­ing the dis­con­nec­tion ex­er­cise, though, the tech­ni­cians and po­lice al­so no­ticed sev­er­al se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras which were fixed on lamp­posts at street cor­ners and trees, with a few point­ing to the Sea Lots coast­line.

One se­nior of­fi­cer told Guardian Me­dia of­fi­cers be­lieve the cam­eras were be­ing used to mon­i­tor the move­ments of po­lice pa­trolling the neigh­bour­hood, and pos­si­bly the move­ments of Coast Guard of­fi­cials along the shore.

Twen­ty-two cam­eras and four Dig­i­tal Video Recorders (DVRs) were con­fis­cat­ed by po­lice dur­ing the ex­er­cise.

DVRs are used to cap­ture, store and man­age video footage col­lect­ed by the cam­eras.

Sources said Cy­ber Crime Unit of­fi­cers may be brought in to fol­low the ori­gin and net­works be­hind the cam­eras as in­quiries con­tin­ue over the next few weeks.

The il­le­gal elec­tric­i­ty con­nec­tions, which were made us­ing al­li­ga­tor clamps, clips and oth­er makeshift con­nec­tions, led to sev­er­al struc­tures through­out Sea Lots.

One of­fi­cer at the scene told Guardian Me­dia that they sus­pect­ed the theft of elec­tric­i­ty was part of wider crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty where gangs al­lowed res­i­dents to make the con­nec­tions to elec­tric­i­ty poles for pow­er, in ex­change for cash.

Dur­ing the ex­er­cise, six men and three women were ar­rest­ed for the theft of elec­tric­i­ty.

Ad­dress­ing the is­sue dur­ing a TTPS me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, ACP North-West Garvin Hen­ry con­firmed the ex­er­cise took place but could not ver­i­fy the seizure of unau­tho­rised cam­eras and was un­able to pro­vide a fi­nal fig­ure on the num­ber of per­sons ar­rest­ed at that time.

“That op­er­a­tion did in fact take place and I do not think it is quite com­plet­ed so to give a tal­ly, it may not be ac­cu­rate,” Hen­ry said.

“But yes, per­sons were caught and ar­rest­ed for steal­ing of elec­tric­i­ty and oth­er of­fences. As far as the cam­eras are con­cerned, I will have to con­firm that part of it.”

In­ves­ti­ga­tors sus­pect that the per­son who in­stalled the Sea Lots cam­eras may have al­ready been ar­rest­ed as part of on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE) ac­tiv­i­ties over the past two months.

An­oth­er of­fi­cer who asked not to be named said the pres­ence of the cam­eras was not a new phe­nom­e­non, but was hope­ful they could find the cul­prits re­spon­si­ble for the in­stal­la­tion of the de­vices.

“It would be dif­fi­cult, be­cause Sea Lots is a very close-knit com­mu­ni­ty and per­sons may be un­will­ing to come for­ward and give in­for­ma­tion to the po­lice out of loy­al­ty, or out of fear of reprisal, but as the mat­ter is still fresh, we hope we can at least make some in­roads in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

Al­so con­tact­ed for com­ment, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land said he would not com­ment on the mat­ter.

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to T&TEC’s cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions unit via email but did not re­ceive a re­sponse up to press time.

The ex­er­cise was led by act­ing ASP Sood­een, ASP Cadette and act­ing In­sp Dur­ga, of the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion.

2nd trou­bling in­ci­dent

Yes­ter­day’s in­ci­dent was sim­i­lar to one last May, when of­fi­cers of the North-Cen­tral Di­vi­sion re­moved 23 cam­eras which were al­so il­le­gal­ly in­stalled on T&TEC light poles.

The cam­eras were re­moved from streets on Monte Grande, Tu­na­puna and Bas­san­ta Trace, St Au­gus­tine, and were be­lieved to be used to mon­i­tor po­lice pa­trols, while al­so serv­ing as an “ear­ly warn­ing” sys­tem for crim­i­nals.

Re­spond­ing to this dis­cov­ery last May, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds was re­port­ed as say­ing that the dis­cov­ery of the cam­eras was “noth­ing new,” as crim­i­nals have al­ways want­ed to spy on po­lice op­er­a­tions.

“We have seen this in Trinidad and To­ba­go be­fore, this oc­curs across the world and is not unique to Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Hinds said at the time.

As of yes­ter­day, one of­fi­cer in an in­ves­tiga­tive sec­tion con­firmed that the en­quiry in­to the dis­cov­ery of those cam­eras from last May was un­able to dis­cov­er who in­stalled the de­vices, de­spite the in­ter­ven­tion of the po­lice Cy­ber Crime Unit and the Tu­na­puna Po­lice Sta­tion’s CSI unit.

The of­fi­cer, how­ev­er, main­tained that once cred­i­ble in­ves­ti­ga­tion sur­faced, they would be able to “re­vis­it” the mat­ter.

Gang­ster caught dur­ing ex­er­cise

As part of yes­ter­day’s ex­er­cis­es, po­lice ar­rest­ed a man de­scribed as a “high-rank­ing” gang mem­ber in Port-of- Spain, when they in­ter­cept­ed the car he was trav­el­ling in.

Po­lice said the man was be­lieved to be plan­ning to leave the coun­try over the next few days and ar­rest­ed him as part of on­go­ing in­quiries in­to mur­ders and shoot­ings.

The man—who is in his mid-for­ties—was ar­rest­ed sev­er­al times in the past.