Cops still facing resistance accessing crucial phone records

Access to phone records were key in the recent arrest of suspects in the murder of kidnapped Enmore businessman Rajendra Singh and sources say the success rate of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) can be much higher if the two local telephone providers are more cooperative.

To date, there are three known cases where the sleuths were able to use telephone records to zero in on suspects and place them before the courts. The first case was that of the 2010 murder of New Amsterdam taxi driver Trevor Kissoon, which was a challenge for investigators, who had to move to the High Court before Digicel handed over the phone records. The second was an airport drug bust investigation, in which police were able to use text messages to build their case. The third was the recent kidnapping and murder of Singh.

Police, with the help of Digicel and GT&T, were able to arrest six men and a woman based on phone numbers that were allegedly used to make ransom calls to the man’s wife. Five of these persons were subsequently charged while the other two were released. Police have in the past complained about the reluctance of providers to respond favourably to requests for records.

When contacted, a senior official at GT&T said the company complies with the requests based on the law. The law was amended to address the fact that cellular phones are used by criminals to facilitate the planning and commission of crimes. The official said the company can only issue information based on a request