Of­fi­cers of the North-East­ern Di­vi­sion have ar­rest­ed a 20-year-old man in con­nec­tion with a rob­bery with vi­o­lence in the San Juan dis­trict.

Po­lice re­port­ed that at around 6.30 pm on Thurs­day, the vic­tim was at the cor­ner of Third Av­enue and East­ern Main Road, Barataria, where he had arranged to meet a man he re­cent­ly con­nect­ed with through an on­line dat­ing ap­pli­ca­tion. The two then pro­ceed­ed north along Third Av­enue to Mis­sion Road Ex­ten­sion, San Juan, where the vic­tim no­ticed two oth­er men stand­ing by the road­side.

Up­on reach­ing the area, the three men—one of whom was armed with a firearm—an­nounced a rob­bery. The as­sailants stole two cel­lu­lar phones and cash from the vic­tim, with a to­tal val­ue of $1,869. Dur­ing the in­ci­dent, the vic­tim was phys­i­cal­ly as­sault­ed and pushed against a gal­vanised fence be­fore the sus­pects fled on foot.

Of­fi­cers from the San Juan Po­lice Sta­tion re­spond­ed prompt­ly. While con­duct­ing en­quiries in the dis­trict, they ob­served a man fit­ting the de­scrip­tion of one of the sus­pects. He was ar­rest­ed and tak­en to the San Juan Po­lice Sta­tion, where en­quiries are on­go­ing.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue as po­lice work to iden­ti­fy and ap­pre­hend the oth­er sus­pects in­volved in the in­ci­dent.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice is urg­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to ex­er­cise cau­tion when meet­ing in­di­vid­u­als known on­ly through on­line plat­forms and to re­port any sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty by call­ing 999, 555, 911, or 800-TIPS.