Gov’t Offering Rewards for Information on Crimes Being Planned During Christmas

Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Andrew Holness, has announced a $50 million incentive fund to offer rewards for information leading to the arrest of persons planning organised crime and gang violence, particularly over the Christmas holiday season.

Speaking during a ceremony on Monday (December 19) to handover two units in Seville Heights, St. Ann, under the New Social Housing Programme (NSHP), Mr. Holness said police intelligence indicates that gangs are planning to rob delivery trucks, supermarkets and other business establishments during the holidays.

Mr. Holness urged persons with information on these planned criminal activities to come forward, pointing out that once this proves useful, those individuals will be rewarded.

“We want to get people who are involved in contract killings, people who are planning to hijack stocks and goods in transit, and people who are planning to rob supermarkets… and other business establishments… during the Christmas season,” Mr. Holness informed.

The Prime Minister advised that the police have managed to foil a number of robbery attempts by gangs.

He said there is a sense that business places have a lot of cash and goods moving around, and that criminals have quick buyers for them.

“[So if] they can hijack the stocks that are being moved around [and] hit business places, they will get a lot of cash,” Mr. Holness noted, while indicating that “we have stopped a few of them.”

“But our intelligence is picking it up and we are moving in and, slowly but surely, we are getting them. But we think that the process could be assisted greatly if the people in the country would share intelligence with the police; and sometimes there needs to be a little reward,” Mr. Holness added.

He emphasised that the public must be fully encouraged to share information and called on well-thinking individuals, particularly family members who know the perpetrators of crime, to contact the police.

“Those criminals who are planning contract killings, we want to know [who they are], and people do know. Tell us, so we can save lives,” Prime Minister Holness maintained.