Chamber: TT’s kidnapping profile heightened

THE Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce yesterday said it received information from a foreign company which said, “the increase in the crime of kidnapping ranks TT second in the world behind Colombia followed by Venezuela and Mexico.” A statement from the Chamber said the information was provided by Kroll International, “a worldwide consulting group on kidnapping and crimes.” However, investigations by Newsday revealed this company had no expertise whatsoever in the area of crime because it is a “supplier of personal and public safety equipment” in the United States.

Further checks revealed that while a similarly named company, Kroll Associates Inc, has a kidnap and ransom practice based in London and offers other risk consultancy services, it had no data on worldwide kidnapping statistics for any time period for any part of the world. In 2003, then National Security Minister Howard Chin Lee said Government’s investigations into Kroll Associates discovered that the company had no track record in analysing worldwide kidnapping trends and after a meeting with then attorney general Glenda Morean, Kroll regional representative Thomas V Cash apologised to the Government.

Cash said Kroll had no evidence to suggest that kidnapping in TT was similar to or exceeded abductions in Latin America, or any other global crime hotspots. In yesterday’s statement, the Chamber also expressed concern that the Police Service reported there were 94 kidnappings from January to June (80 non-ransom, 14 for ransom and two were children under 12.) The Chamber claimed that the Anti-Kidnapping Squad “continues to lack very basic resources and state-of-the-art equipment to deal with this type of crime.” It called on National Security Minister Martin Joseph to take immediate steps to rectify this situation.