Commanding Officer of the Portland Police Division, Superintendent Ainsley McCarthy, says the police have disrupted an organised criminal group believed to be responsible for a series of commercial break-ins across Portland, St Mary and St Ann.

McCarthy said the gang operated across the three parishes and targeted businesses, particularly establishments with gaming or poker machines.

"There is a group that has been creating a burden right across all three parishes in Area Two. Their modus operandi is breaking into establishments, especially establishments that have poker machines. They are operating right across all three parishes," he was quoted as saying in a news story released by the police's Constabulary Communications Network (CCN).