WESTERN BUREAU:
WITH MORE and more high-profile criminals seeking out safe havens in rural Jamaica, the Operation Kingfish task force is imploring residents of rural Jamaica to report all suspicious strangers and strange occurrences in their communities.
"If you see a stranger turn up in your community and you are uncertain about his status, tell us at Kingfish, we have the capacity to check him out," said Superintendent Denver Frater, Kingfish's director of investigations.
Superintendent Frater said the same should be done if you see someone coming in and flaunting wealth, especially acquiring expensive assets or constructing huge luxury mansions.
"All we need is the licence number of a car or the licence plate of a truck delivering material. We have the investigative capacity to take it from there," Superintendent Frater said.
"We are a multi-agency organisation and our effort is supported by all the arms of the local police and our overseas counterparts."
THREE-PRONGED OPERATION
According to Superintendent Frater, Kingfish's recent successes, which included the bringing down of top gangsters, such as Joel Andem and Donovan 'Bulbie' Bennett, were primarily due to its three-pronged operational approach, which encompasses intelligence, investigation and apprehension.
Supt. Frater noted that in addition to the support from their overseas partners and through other sources such as Crime Stop, criminals who have been apprehended also provide crucial information at times.
"Our overseas partners sometimes provide us with critical information, which we have used to crack cases here," said Superintendent Frater. "However, surprisingly, some of those we captured provide us with credible information which we use to bring down other criminals."
While expressing satisfaction with Kingfish's current successes, Supt. Frater said there are many more criminals out there who need to be apprehended and he is again calling on the public to partner with Kingfish to make Jamaica safe.
"We have the capacity to protect all those who provide us with information," he said. "You don't have to view it as giving information to the police because it is much more than that. See it as a way of cleaning up Jamaica and making it safe for all of us."
A.F.
