President of the Tunapuna Police Station Community Council and director of the Greater Tunapuna Chamber of Industry & Commerce Neil Boodoosingh says small and micro businesses are most affected by extortion in the area, with more than 20 businesses targeted in the past year.

He made the comment as police on Thursday said three men were arrested for their role in an extortion racket.

North Central Division officers held the men on August 28, after weeks of investigations and surveillance

The three suspects – a 39-year-old of Santa Cruz, a 33-year-old of St Joseph and a 26- year-old of Valsayn – are believed to have extorted over $200,000 from more than a dozen people.

Police say the crimes spanned several months, and the men received multiple payments during that time.

They were held on suspicion of demanding money by menace, the term applied to extortion in TT law.

Speaking with Newsday hours after the police revealed the men’s arrest, Boodoosingh said extortion had been affecting business in the area for years.

“This has been going on for a while but it is only now highlighted because people are fed up.”

He said the majority of victims were small businesses, small and micro enterprises and even market vendors.

“The targets are the smaller businesses that cannot afford the extra security or extra surveillance system or the cash-in-transit facilities. It is usually more of the ‘mom and pop’ businesses.”

Boodoosingh said getting accurate data on extortion was difficult as people were often afraid to say they were threatened.

The business is a lucrative one for criminals and Boodoosingh said although his data was based on anecdotal information reaching him in his role on the police station community council, the number of businesses affected in the last year was significant, with extortion demands possibly earning criminals hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“Obviously, if a business paid this money, they wouldn’t come and tell us they paid. Nobody wants anybody to know that they have paid. But (the criminals) have made demands of as little as $200 per week and demands of as high as $150,000 in a lump sum.”

Boodoosingh said the perpetrators were usually members of a criminal gang.

“They all belong to gangs in some way or the other. They work in groups, they work in tandem and they have relationships amongst themselves.”

He said extortionists often used technology to make initial contact with their victims.

Boodoosingh said it allowed the mastermind behind the crime to keep some distance between themselves and their crimes, and it also made it harder to catch them.

“The actual guys that come out to collect and do all the runabout are just the miscreants, the minions. The masterminds stay hidden behind a phone trying to disseminate fear into people. So when you get a call, you don’t know who is on the other end, but that is not the person who might come to visit you.

“Sometimes the TTPS (TT Police Service) would set up a sting operation, and the person they hold don’t even know w