SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

Shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

The Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Squad (PLS), set up to pro­tect farm­ing com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try from crim­i­nals, is now be­ing di­vert­ed to pro­vide se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices for var­i­ous Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries projects. This shift un­der­mines the re­al pur­pose of the unit and leaves agri­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ties, al­ready prone to crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, in­creas­ing­ly ex­posed.

Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice of­fi­cers—78 con­sta­bles and 12 cor­po­rals in the squad—have ex­pressed grow­ing frus­tra­tion over their re­as­sign­ment from pa­trolling agri­cul­tur­al lands to du­ties like guard­ing fish­ing de­pots and at­tend­ing min­istry func­tions.

To make mat­ters worse, four of the squad’s nine ve­hi­cles are non-func­tion­al, crip­pling their mo­bil­i­ty and pres­ence.

Dur­ing the State of Emer­gency, crim­i­nals have grown more brazen, steal­ing thou­sands of dol­lars in crops and live­stock as farm­ing com­mu­ni­ties are left with­out ad­e­quate pro­tec­tion

Farm­ers are now be­ing forced to ex­or­bi­tant fees for pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty to pro­tect their crops and live­stock from brazen thieves.

On Car­ni­val Tues­day, of­fi­cers at­tached to the Carlsen Field sta­tion boy­cotted their du­ties, stat­ing they had reached a break­ing point. Some of­fi­cers have been call­ing in sick.

Be­tween last year and this year, sev­en of­fi­cers have left the job, while 12 of­fi­cers have signed up to join the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre in Aripo.

The role of the PLS

Es­tab­lished in 2013, the PLS is re­spon­si­ble for re­duc­ing in­ci­dents of prae­di­al lar­ce­ny by pro­vid­ing foot and mo­bile pa­trols in farm­ing com­mu­ni­ties. The of­fi­cers al­so in­ves­ti­gate re­ports and in­ci­dents of prae­di­al lar­ce­ny.

The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries is re­spon­si­ble for the squad.

A 2013 Cab­i­net Note stat­ed that the to­tal num­ber of of­fi­cers re­quired at the op­er­a­tional lev­el of the PLS would con­sist of four sergeants, 12 cor­po­rals, and 84 con­sta­bles. The an­nu­al cost of the squad was es­ti­mat­ed to be $9,754,990.

The squad re­mained floun­der­ing over the years, and af­ter an out­cry by farm­ers for pro­tec­tion, Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries Kaz­im Ho­sein sought to bol­ster the squad. In March 2024 he added 67 of­fi­cers to the squad, in­creas­ing the strength to 104.

The unit was al­so pro­vid­ed with four new ve­hi­cles nine months ago, in­creas­ing the fleet to nine.

“For the past three months, farm­ers have been com­plain­ing that of­fi­cers have not been re­spond­ing to prae­di­al lar­ce­ny re­ports,” said one of­fi­cer who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty dur­ing an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian.

“Our pa­trols and sur­veil­lance have been sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duced be­cause we are now as­signed to se­cu­ri­ty du­ties,” the of­fi­cer com­plained.

He said some of­fi­cers are over­worked and have be­come de­mo­ti­vat­ed.

The of­fi­cer said some con­sta­bles work ten 24-hour shifts in a month.

“That’s 240 hours of work per month, which is ridicu­lous in my opin­ion. These con­sta­bles are paid a month­ly salary of $6,900. To me, it’s noth­ing short of ex­ploita­tion and ad­van­tage.”

In the last quar­ter of 2024, of­fi­cers said, the PLS main­tained a strong and vis­i­ble pres­ence on farms that were fre­quent­ly tar­get­ed by crim­i­nals.

“We safe­guard­ed and pro­tect­ed farms from crim­i­nals who were on a ram­page. Even our ar­rest rate was grow­ing. We were see­ing progress in our work,” an­oth­er of­fi­cer said.

‘Not what we signed up for’

For this year, he said, their work sched­ule changed, as they have been per­form­ing more se­cu­ri­ty du­ties for the min­istry.

Of­fi­cers of the Princes Town, Cap-de-Ville and Carlsen Field sta­tions have been ros­tered to work as se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers on 12-hour shifts at the San Fer­nan­do Fish­ing Cen­tre. Each shift re­quires two of­fi­cers and one ve­hi­cle. Yes­ter­day the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion hand­ed over the $35 mil­lion San Fer­nan­do Fish­ing Cen­tre to the Gov­ern­ment.

At the St Joseph and Carlsen Field sta­tions, of­fi­cers have al­so pro­vid­ed tem­po­rary se­cu­ri­ty du­ties in Cara­po, Heights of Aripo, El Car­men and Roy­al Botan­i­cal Gar­dens by the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture in the last three months.

“When the min­istry has re­cruit­ment ex­er­cis­es at these lo­ca­tions, we are re­quired to work as se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers,” the of­fi­cer ex­plained.

In Jan­u­ary, two of­fi­cers were al­so re­quest­ed to work for the Agri­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety of T&T’s (ASTT) an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ings.

“It’s be­yond un­ten­able now. This is not what we have signed up for,” one of­fi­cer com­plained.

The of­fi­cers not­ed that the PLS’ 2013 Cab­i­net Note states they may be asked to per­form oth­er du­ties re­lat­ed to the job.

How­ev­er, they ar­gued, “The Cab­i­net Note al­so states that our core role is to pa­trol agri­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ties to pre­vent and de­tect in­ci­dents of prae­di­al lar­ce­ny. This is what we were hired to do.”

Ve­hi­cles down, poor fa­cil­i­ties

Soon, two PLS of­fi­cers would be as­signed to guard the Ma­coya Mar­ket dur­ing the wee hours of the morn­ing. This ser­vice was ini­tial­ly pro­vid­ed by a team of of­fi­cers of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

“What is hin­der­ing us from work­ing in the mar­ket is a lack of work­ing ve­hi­cles.”

The of­fi­cer re­vealed four ve­hi­cles were down for mi­nor re­pairs.

“At least two of the ve­hi­cles need a change in brake pads. It has been more than a month that they have been parked up. The lone ve­hi­cle at St Joseph re­cent­ly stopped work­ing due to bat­tery prob­lems,” the of­fi­cer said, voic­ing his dis­plea­sure.

Fur­ther ex­ac­er­bat­ing the prob­lem, the PLS’s ad­min­is­tra­tive de­part­ment has been util­is­ing two of their squad’s ve­hi­cles.

Two months ago, the of­fi­cer said they faced a ma­jor is­sue at the Carlsen Field sta­tion when the age­ing sew­er sys­tem col­lapsed, caus­ing sewage to over­flow in­side the build­ing. As a re­sult, both of the sta­tion’s toi­lets be­came un­us­able. Af­ter the build­ing was sani­tised, the min­istry pro­vid­ed a portable toi­let, which was placed on the com­pound for the of­fi­cers to use.

A di­rec­tive was then giv­en that fe­male of­fi­cers at­tached to the sta­tion be re­lo­cat­ed.

The of­fi­cers said the min­istry was aware of their com­plaints, which have been falling on deaf ears.

Mean­while, the min­istry is promis­ing to re­cruit a fresh batch of of­fi­cers. Last year, the posts of su­per­in­ten­dent and as­sis­tant su­per­in­ten­dent were ad­ver­tised for the squad, but they have re­mained va­cant.

Con­tact­ed on Fri­day, the co­or­di­na­tor of PLS, re­tired deputy com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Har­rikr­ishen Baldeo, said he could not com­ment on the mat­ter and asked that Guardian Me­dia di­rect all ques­tions to the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture.

Min­is­ter Ho­sein did not re­spond to queries from the Sun­day Guardian.

Farmer pays $1,100 dai­ly for se­cu­ri­ty

Frus­trat­ed by the Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Squad’s dwin­dling ef­fec­tive­ness, some farm­ers are now forced to spend sig­nif­i­cant amounts on pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty to pro­tect their liveli­hoods, as thefts con­tin­ue to take a heavy toll on their busi­ness­es.

Fed-up Man­zanil­la farmer Kern Lemessy spent more than $55,000 in an at­tempt to pro­tect his sprawl­ing Man­zanil­la farm in the last 50 days. He pays $1,100 dai­ly for an of­fi­cer dur­ing the day and two watch­men at night.

The 40-year-old cul­ti­vates co­conuts and wa­ter­mel­ons on his 105-acre farm near the beach­front.

But crim­i­nals have been mak­ing his life mis­er­able, raid­ing his acreage re­li­gious­ly.

“I have faced more than 60 thefts in the last year. I am at my wits’ end,” he said in frus­tra­tion.

Af­ter mak­ing po­lice re­ports, he said the PLS East­ern Di­vi­sion start­ed mak­ing reg­u­lar pa­trols, al­so con­duct­ing road­blocks.

“They were re­al­ly ef­fec­tive, but now they have di­min­ished that unit and, in the process, bro­ken the morale of farm­ers. It al­so puts you at risk,” he said.

Last Au­gust, a thief was caught steal­ing 3,000 dried co­conuts on his farm worth $30,000.

That mat­ter is be­fore the court.

“I felt com­fort­able with polic­ing again. Not in the sense of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, but about prae­di­al lar­ce­ny. I felt like we were be­ing sup­port­ed by the au­thor­i­ties,” the farmer said.

How­ev­er, when sur­veil­lance and pa­trols start­ed to dwin­dle this year, his farm came un­der at­tack again.

Lemessy said the steal­ing and dam­age to his crops have been as­tro­nom­i­cal.

“The ban­dits have chopped dozens of wa­ter­mel­ons to see if they are ready for har­vest­ing. I can safe­ly say I lost over $100,000 in co­conuts and wa­ter­mel­on in the last year.”

On March 24, he said two guys were caught steal­ing 400 pounds of wa­ter­mel­ons on his farm.

“They were caught car­ry­ing the wa­ter­mel­ons to their car parked on the beach. The Ma­yaro po­lice took the guys to the sta­tion and then re­leased them, say­ing they don’t have suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to charge them be­cause the wa­ter­mel­ons were not in­side the car,” he said.

“I got no sup­port from the po­lice af­ter spend­ing $500,000 on my es­tate. So what are we do­ing? The sys­tem is not work­ing. There is no con­se­quence for steal­ing.”

Days lat­er, Lemessy said the same crim­i­nals re­turned to his farm to search for a lost cell­phone.

“The po­lice had to come back and tell them to leave. They were not even charged for tres­pass­ing,” he com­plained.