The perils facing Jamaica/UK returning residents

Just last week a returning resident related to me an incident, where mere minutes after reaching home from the airport, the entire family was held up at gun point and robbed of everything and I mean everything including their suitcases.

A few years ago this was very bad, then the cops stepped in and somehow made a dent in this crime and a police  officer was even implicated in robbery.

This is how the robbery of returning residents occur setup and execution.

English based flights on British Airways from London Heathrow arrive in Kingston twice per week, on a Wednesday and  on  a Friday.

At baggage handling, specific persons are targeted based on their addresses, particular  those going to places like Manchester and other rural parishes, the more bags the more likely they become the target.

The baggage handlers contact their cronies on the outside that they have a possible target and gives them the address of the target as written on the baggage tag that is affixed to the luggage.

The corrupt baggage handler then makes contact with someone inside the baggage claim (  his helpful crony) and the specific luggage are identified  and you are “helped” to stack them unto the carts to go to customs.

The helper then is some cases arrange with dispatcher for a charter to take you to your destination if you don’t  have your own ride. If you do the “helper” takes the cart with your luggage to the vehicle  off loads it and collect but not before noting your vehicle type and license number.

The helper then passes on either the plate number of the charter or the personal vehicle to the robbers on the outside, who will trail you to home( if they have to )before proceeding to rob you , share the spoils and return to parking on the outside of the Airport waiting for the next Wed or Friday flight to arrive.

My advice to returning British/Jamaican Nationals

1. Do not state your local addresses on baggage tags.
2. Be careful of those who seem way to be helpful in assisting you, with your luggage.
3. If you can, ship your step via ocean freight (if you have a lot of stuff) ahead of your visit.
4. Look around in the baggage claim area for individuals who appears to be overly helpful.
5. Organize your own transport via the charter JUTA service at the airport, don’t allow that helpful guy carrying your luggage to arrange your transport.
6. Do not come in with plenty cash, just take enough to pay local charges, send the funds through the banking system.

 

To the local police and airport authorities.

1. Bar the use of cellphone by baggage handlers on the tarmac or anywhere near the planes while they are on duty.
2. Bar the use of cellphones by baggage handlers in the baggage claim area, this includes the red hat guys.
3. Have extra patrol in and around the airport and  on the rd as far as to the harbour roundabout looking for suspicious activities.
4. The thieves uses the same set of cars most of the time, so  use the existing camera system to record vehicles entering and leaving the vicinity of the airport. How can a man not running a taxi or JUTA service can be at the airport every Wed and Friday, does that not strike you as being odd.
5. There is a tendency for vehicles to be parked on that stretch of roadway coming from the airport just after passing the road-about with the air Jamaica tail in the center. Conduct additional spot checks on the occupants of these vehicles as that could be where they sit and wait for the target vehicle to emerge before they begin to trail them.
6. Post unmarked cars with cops in this area and work with cops on the inside to identify potential target vehicles and initiate your own tailing once a car leaves those spots after one of these target vehicle passes by.

Crooks after getting away with acts thinks they are very smart, but to catch them cops have to think like them, without being able to so so, we will keep reacting after the incident has occurred.

UK Government may be issuing an advisory soon regarding what is taking place in Jamaica in light of the numerous returning residents that have been robbed in the last six weeks, where over 56,000 GPB have been taken by robbers.

Jamaica has once again emerged as the center of criminal actiivty in the Caribbean and Latiin America.

When was the last time you heard of serious criminal activity in Colombia, anyone remembers Bogota ?

The Government decided that enough was enough and took strong and decisive action to reduced the level of criminal activity in Columbia including murders. Recall  Bogota was once the murder capital of the world, funneled by drug money.

Today the city of Bogota and Columbia is a shining example of what can be achieved when the Government and the people of a country decides to put the country first and fix their social problems.

Columbia has fixed their crime problem and the country is now experiencing significant levels of investment and growth.

What are we doing in Jamaica, are we not yet at that point of being fed up to demand that the Government either improve security in Jamaica or step aside?

What will it take to get us to that point?