With the re­cent an­nounce­ment of a new elite unit to tack­le white-col­lar crime in T&T and promis­es that the “Big Fish” will be ar­rest­ed and brought to jus­tice, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Gary Grif­fith is as­sur­ing that it will not be a unit en­gag­ing in witch-hunt. Grif­fith al­so said he in­tends to “ac­quire” lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al ex­per­tise from out­side to im­prove its ef­fec­tive­ness. The fol­low­ing is a short Ques­tion and An­swer with the CoP. What are the fi­nan­cial bod­ies be­ing merged to form the new unit to fight white-col­lar crime in T&T?

CoP: Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Di­vi­sion (FID) with sub­units from Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Bu­reau, Fraud Squad, Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau, el­e­ments of Or­gan­ised Crime In­tel­li­gence Unit, and Cy­ber Crime Unit. What are the ma­jor white-col­lar mat­ters out­stand­ing over the years that are to be dealt with? This is not a witch-hunt unit to spec­i­fy any par­tic­u­lar case or cas­es. It is to en­sure a more ef­fec­tive arm of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to deal with such crimes and at a faster ba­sis. It would al­so en­sure bet­ter shar­ing of da­ta be­tween these units and like­wise, be­tween TTPS and oth­er units in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. How many of those white-col­lar crimes in­volv­ing politi­cians or high of­fice hold­ers in T&T have reached your desk?(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]