标签： Trinidad and Tobago

As the high-spending Divali and Christmas holiday shopping seasons loom on the horizon, a pervasive wave of targeted, often brazen petty and mid-level violent crime across Trinidad and Tobago is casting a long shadow over Port of Spain’s commercial districts and suburban retail hubs, prompting leading national business associations to issue urgent public warnings that widespread public fear for personal safety is eroding consumer confidence and disrupting normal economic activity.

Top industry representatives outlined their concerns in coordinated public statements this week, noting that a surge in violent street robberies of personal jewelry, post-banking transaction ambushes, targeted attacks on women at suburban shopping centers and neighborhood grocery stores, and rampant copper and commercial equipment theft have already begun to alter daily routines for ordinary residents, even as official data shows a welcome recent dip in the country’s overall murder rate.

Gregory Aboud, president of the Downtown Owners and Merchants Association (DOMA), emphasized that the cumulative impact of these persistent, insidious offenses is hitting small and medium-sized enterprises the hardest, with spillover effects rippling across every segment of the local economy from manufacturing to street taxi operations. He argued that widespread public apprehension about leaving home is a major, underrecognized driver of the national recession that many residents report experiencing, even as official macroeconomic metrics paint a more nuanced picture. “This situation has reached epidemic levels, spreading from high-foot-traffic commercial corridors to taxi stands, the Savannah food market, and local cinemas,” Aboud explained. What began as isolated attacks on ATM users has now expanded to target customers immediately after completing in-branch cash transactions, pointing to a highly coordinated, organized criminal network operating across the country.

Aboud went on to challenge public officials who dispute claims that public safety conditions are worsening, inviting doubters to wear a visible gold chain or bracelet and stand in high-traffic locations including Croisee, High Street, or South Quay for 15 minutes to experience the current risk firsthand. He noted that copper theft has become so rampant that local suppliers are now completely out of stock of air conditioning compressors and copper piping, and the recent break-in at the state telecommunications provider TSTT’s cable warehouse is likely a sign that looters have exhausted smaller, easier sources of copper across the country. While DOMA expressed gratitude to the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) for recent successful arrest operations, Aboud stressed that overall security conditions are continuing to deteriorate regardless. Drawing on a past successful enforcement model that dismantled a criminal syndicate that targeted international visitors after following them home from the airport, Aboud called on authorities to deploy a dedicated, specialized task force of undercover plainclothes officers focused exclusively on disrupting these specific, widespread property and personal robbery rings. He also acknowledged that widespread national unemployment has contributed to the rise in lawlessness, but argued that the current surge in crime is actively worsening economic hardship by suppressing commercial activity and job creation, creating a vicious cycle that must be broken by addressing public safety first.

Dianne Joseph, president of the T&T Coalition of Services Industries (TTCSI), echoed DOMA’s warnings, noting that widespread security fears have already forced large segments of the public to adjust their daily routines, with most residents now avoiding late-night travel entirely, creating major disruptions for public and private transit operators as well as after-hours retail and hospitality businesses. Joseph emphasized that residents have not fully withdrawn from public life or abandoned plans to participate in holiday social, cultural and shopping activities, but are now navigating public spaces with extreme vigilance, planning trips with deliberate, safety-focused calculations to minimize risk. To protect the upcoming holiday economic momentum, TTCSI is pushing for a coordinated, multi-layered public safety strategy that deploys large teams of plainclothes operatives embedded within holiday shopping crowds to disrupt robbery rings and break up criminal surveillance teams targeting bank customers, paired with highly visible tactical patrols and fixed security posts at all major commercial hubs to give shoppers full confidence that they can spend and celebrate without unnecessary risk.

Dr. Ramesh Ramdeen, chief executive officer of the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers’ Association (TTMA), noted that widespread social media coverage of recent petty robberies and snatch-and-run thefts has amplified public perceptions of rising risk, even as official crime statistics are still being compiled. He warned that if suppressed consumer spending at the retail level persists through the holiday season, the negative economic impact will soon ripple upstream to hit local goods producers, creating cascading harm across the entire domestic supply chain. All three leading industry groups have pledged full collaborative support to the TTPS and national security authorities to design and roll out proactive new safety measures that can protect residents, preserve holiday commerce, and curb the spread of organized low-level violent crime through the upcoming Christmas, Carnival season and beyond.

Dr. Shane Mohammed, a recently appointed board member of the National Council of Indian Culture (NCIC), has stepped down from his post, marking the third departure among the organisation’s five government-appointed board representatives in recent months.
Mohammed submitted his immediate-effect resignation to NCIC president Surujdeo Mangaroo yesterday, outlining his core grievance in an open letter shared with local news outlet the Trinidad and Tobago Express. The letter details that the unaddressed, widely circulated public narrative claiming Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar personally halted state funding for the 2026 Divali Nagar festival had been left uncorrected by the NCIC leadership, despite Mohammed’s repeated efforts to clarify the claim was categorically false. Mohammed noted he had joined the board earlier this year, after supporting the smooth execution of the NCIC’s April annual general meeting, with the explicit goal of bringing independent, non-partisan operational expertise to the newly elected leadership team. He added that he had already begun planning for the 2026 edition of the iconic Chaguanas-based cultural event, and had pre-emptively prepared for potential shifts in state corporate sponsorships due to updated government policy frameworks, long before the recent wave of withdrawals by state-linked enterprises.
The recent string of state sponsor pullbacks began last week, when a cohort of major public entities including telecommunications provider bmobile, National Flour Mills, First Citizens bank, and Caribbean Airlines all formally announced they would no longer provide financial support for the annual Divali Nagar celebrations, triggering widespread public debate over the event’s funding future. Prior to Mohammed’s resignation, two other appointed board members had already departed: one stepped down just last Friday citing conflicting professional work commitments, while a second resigned two months earlier, leaving only three remaining appointed representatives on the 23-person board, which is composed of 5 appointed and 18 elected members.
When questioned about Mohammed’s public concerns, NCIC head Surujdeo Mangaroo told reporters that all 18 elected board members remained fully active, and were leading the event’s various operational committees to ensure the upcoming 2025 Divali Nagar proceeds as scheduled. In an official public statement released the same day, the NCIC shared that it is moving forward with full preparations for the nine-day festival opening on October 30, with internal projections estimating more than 300,000 total attendees across the run. This year’s event carries the theme “Viveka: Discerning Truth in the Age of AI”, designed to explore traditional concepts of intellectual discernment and spiritual wisdom against the backdrop of today’s rapidly evolving digital and artificial intelligence landscape. The packed festival program will include daily performances from leading local and international artists, folk dance ensembles, and classical Indian musicians, alongside a sprawling commercial market, stalls serving authentic fusion Indian-Caribbean vegetarian cuisine, and a sprawling display of thousands of traditional handcrafted deyas paired with modern, innovative lighting installations. Organisers have stated they are on track to deliver a landmark, family-friendly cultural experience for local communities and international tourists alike, independent of the withdrawn state sponsorships.

In the pre-dawn hours of Monday, a Princes Town resident and his partner found themselves trapped in a life-or-death standoff with armed intruders who forced their way into their Lothians Road property, a terrifying ordeal that is part of a growing wave of targeted home robberies sweeping the quiet Trinidadian community. Vaughn Taylor, the homeowner, explained that he credits divine intervention for waking him just as two masked men crept across his property, with a nearby neighbour later confirming two additional accomplices were lying in wait in his backyard. When Taylor flipped on a room light after spotting one intruder crouched on a partition wall, the suspect crashed through a nearby chair in a panic, prompting Taylor to sprint back inside the main living space and bar the entryway as the gang chanted threats to kill him. His girlfriend rushed to help reinforce the barricaded door as the attackers kicked at the frame, while she frantically placed an emergency call to the Princes Town Police Station. Officers arrived on scene within minutes, and their investigation confirmed the intruders had gained access through an unsecured sliding living room window before fleeing out a back exit, making off with Taylor’s cash and personal jewellery. Taylor’s harrowing experience is far from isolated: in the span of just recent weeks, he says at least five local households have fallen victim to similar break-ins, a stark shift from the community’s once peaceful reputation where residents regularly left their front doors unlocked without fear. Many homeowners have already invested in heavy-duty steel security doors to deter breaches, but Taylor notes that determined thieves have still managed to bypass these barriers. He also pointed out that residential crime appeared far less frequent during the recently concluded national State of Emergency, when heavy police presence kept bandits off local streets. Just 48 hours before Taylor’s incident, a separate home invasion unfolded on nearby Kingsley Street, where two brothers who have lived in their two-storey family home for 28 years discovered an unknown intruder wandering inside their property in the early hours of Saturday. Hasely McIntosh, 48, said the suspect stole two mobile phones before fleeing, leaving his sister and young niece deeply traumatised after the woman’s screams alerted the rest of the household to the breach. The family found zero visible signs of forced entry, leaving them confused as to how the intruder slipped inside, and the same gang targeted a relative’s home just hours later that same day. Sherwin McIntosh, Hasely’s brother, recalled one of the suspects even reached through an open window to grab his shorts in a search for cash, a brazen act that has left the entire family on edge. The McIntosh brothers are now joining a growing chorus of local residents calling on municipal authorities to install additional street lighting on the neighbourhood’s narrow side streets and deploy more frequent, visible police foot and vehicle patrols to curb the surge in violent home invasions before more residents are harmed.

Trinidad and Tobago law enforcement officials have taken three individuals into custody for voluntary questioning overnight as part of a sweeping probe into a suspected deliberate arson at state telecommunications provider TSTT’s Laventille Work Centre that destroyed more than TT$20 million worth of high-value insulated copper cable over the weekend. According to an official statement from the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS), emergency first responders received the first report of a large blaze tearing through the TSTT facility on Eastern Main Road shortly after 10:25 p.m. on Saturday night. The fast-moving inferno completely incinerated stockpiles of combustible insulated copper telecommunications cable stored on the premises, with preliminary damage assessments placing the total value of destroyed inventory at more than TT$20 million, as full teams continue to survey the compound to calculate the full scope of structural and equipment losses. Firefighters battled the persistent blaze for nearly nine hours, gaining initial containment by 7:35 a.m. the following day, with final extinguishment operations stretching late into the night to douse remaining smouldering material. One firefighter was transported to Port of Spain General Hospital for treatment of minor superficial burns and smoke inhalation, and has since been released to recover. Unverified on-scene reports that circulated shortly after the fire broke out alleged the attack was carried out by individuals affiliated with the local District One gang, with security camera footage reportedly capturing suspects hurling improvised Molotov cocktail incendiary devices over the compound perimeter fence to ignite the fire. Investigators have since collected security footage from the site and pulled CCTV recordings from all adjacent public and private locations to cross-reference witness accounts and track the movement of potential suspects. In a coordinated law enforcement operation launched between midnight and 6 a.m. the day after the fire, hundreds of officers drawn from the Port of Spain Division, Port of Spain Task Force, Inter-Agency Task Force, Transit Police, Air Support Unit, Guard and Emergency Branch, K-9 Unit, and supported by members of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force, executed targeted sweeps across Beetham, Laventille, and surrounding neighbourhoods. The operation, overseen by Deputy Commissioner of Police (Operations) Suzette Martin and managed on the ground by senior ranking officers including Superintendent Ramsook, Superintendent Cadette, Acting Assistant Superintendent Mongroo, and Inspector Bethelmy, involved systematic searches of residential properties, parked vehicles, and voluntary interviews with local residents to gather intelligence on any suspicious activity recorded in the area on the night of the attack. Martin emphasized that the TTPS is prioritizing the case given the severe public safety risks posed by the deliberate act, noting that any intentional attack on critical national infrastructure that puts civilian lives, local communities, and frontline emergency responders in harm’s way will not be tolerated. “We take this incident extremely seriously. Any deliberate act that threatens lives, damages critical infrastructure or places emergency responders at risk, is unacceptable. We will pursue all available investigative avenues to establish the circumstances surrounding this incident and bring those responsible to justice,” Martin stated in an official media release. The TTPS has issued a public appeal to any witnesses who observed unusual activity near the TSTT compound on Saturday evening, or who hold information relevant to the investigation, to contact the Besson Street Police Station at 623-1395, the national emergency hotlines 555 or 999, or the anonymous Crime Stoppers line at 800-TIPS. In a separate official update, TSTT confirmed that the fire at its cable yard has been fully extinguished, with 24/7 monitoring teams deployed on site to mitigate any risk of re-ignition, noting that no TSTT staff sustained injuries during the incident, while the root cause of the fire and full damage assessment remain ongoing. The high-profile arson incident sparked widespread public concern over collateral risks to adjacent critical facilities, including the nearby Angostura Ltd distillery warehouses and industrial tank farm. Angostura released an official statement confirming the fire did not originate on its property, but came close enough to pose a tangible operational and safety threat, noting that its leadership is coordinating closely with local authorities and emergency response teams to monitor conditions and implement proactive risk mitigation measures. The company added that all core manufacturing, production, and distribution operations have remained fully uninterrupted since the incident, with additional safety precautions put in place to protect its employees, physical assets, and supply chain continuity. Reporters from the Trinidad Express who visited the site on Sunday morning observed thick plumes of residual smoke still hanging over the compound, with teams of firefighters and T&TEC utility personnel entering the restricted zone to conduct post-incident assessments. Local residents of nearby Beetham Gardens and Laventille neighbourhoods told reporters the overnight fire left many community members deeply traumatized, as heavy toxic smoke drifted into residential areas for hours, triggering respiratory distress and widespread fear that the out-of-control blaze could spread to nearby homes. “It was going on for hours, and the smoke was making it hard to breathe. We were worried because we did not know if the fire would spread any further or if our homes would be affected,” one local resident shared. Another resident noted that the extended duration of the overnight fire left families fearing total loss of their homes and personal possessions, particularly with young children sheltering in place as the blaze raged nearby. “We were scared because a fire like that could get out of control very quickly. People have their children, their families and everything they own in those homes. We were thinking about what could happen if the fire spread to us,” the unnamed resident explained. Multiple community members expressed deep gratitude to frontline firefighters and emergency personnel who worked through the night to contain the blaze and prevent it from spreading to residential neighbourhoods, noting that the outcome could have been catastrophic without their rapid, sustained intervention. Local residents also universally condemned the actions of the suspected arsonists, calling for full accountability for anyone found responsible for the reckless attack that put dozens of innocent civilians at risk of injury, displacement, or death. Laventille West Member of Parliament Kareem Marcelle also weighed in on the incident via a public social media post, expressing relief that no fatalities were recorded in the blaze, and confirming that he is awaiting the full official findings of the ongoing Trinidad and Tobago Fire Service and TTPS investigations into the attack.