PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Kidnappings for ransom have taken a sharp plunge since the start of the year compared to 2005 and police here have linked the decline to improved training for lawmen and the jailing of key masterminds behind the criminal enterprise.
Since the start of the year, there have been seven kidnappings for ransom, six of which have “been solved” said a report in the Sunday Express newspaper. This is a huge fall from 36 kidnappings for ransom, recorded over the same period last year.
Police statistics reveal that some 58 kidnappings were recorded for all of 2005; 28 for 2004; 51 for 2003 and 29 in 2002.
Head of the Anti-Kidnapping Unit, Assistant Superintendent David Nedd, said improved training has been crucial to the steep decline in abductions.
He said that the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation, along with the United Kingdom’s kidnapping investigative unit, provided local police with some of the skills which ensured better coordination among the various arms of local law enforcement.
Nedd said this resulted in “better understanding of who does what and when.” He added that several arrests in relation to recent kidnappings “have caused us to be fortified in the belief that some of the main kidnapping gangs and their leaders are now behind bars.”