Police step up patrols as copper theft rises in capital

Po­lice in the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion say they have record­ed a no­tice­able in­crease in cop­per theft, in­clud­ing the theft of telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions ca­bles, and are step­ping up po­lice ac­tiv­i­ties to curb fur­ther van­dal­ism and theft of valu­able equip­ment.

The re­sponse comes a day af­ter Down­town Own­ers’ and Mer­chants’ As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) pres­i­dent Gre­go­ry Aboud raised con­cerns about the theft of cop­per ma­te­ri­als from busi­ness­es in the cap­i­tal, in­clud­ing a re­port­ed $2 mil­lion worth of pri­vate­ly owned air-con­di­tion­ing and elec­tri­cal equip­ment.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia through the TTPS Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit yes­ter­day, head of the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion Snr Supt Ray­mond Thom con­firmed that pre­lim­i­nary da­ta showed an in­crease in re­ports of cop­per theft dur­ing the first half of this year com­pared with the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od in 2025.