Crime Stoppers takes 4,149 calls

Since its launch in 1999, the Crime Stoppers hotline (800-TIPS) has received some 4,149 anonymous phone calls resulting in 1,767 tip-offs about criminal activities. 

This was disclosed by Crime Stoppers general manager, Devrol Dupigny, addressing a Personal Security Awareness Seminar organised by AmCham at the Hilton Trinidad yesterday. Further, the past month had seen a five-fold increase in the number of valid tips given, he emphasised. Dupigny said that while the group had received 157 calls including 46 tips in June, in July so far they had got 393 calls including 249 tips, an increase in calls of 250 percent and a whopping 540 percent increase in tips.

In the first 23 days of July alone, he said, the hotline had resulted in the arrest of 16 people and the solving of 25 investigations. He trumpeted the effectiveness of the programme and its campaign of education and increased public awareness. The chief offences solved by the hotline since its inception, he disclosed, were narcotics (493 cases), firearms (120), larceny (103), murder (43), sexual offences (17) and kidnaping (nine). Dupigny assured the confidentiality of the hotline, saying calls could not be recorded nor traced.