Police Commissioner, Rudolph Proctor, has advised owners of vehicles not to allow them to remain overnight at ports and other public places, or in their yards, with their keys inside.
“If you are going to be leaving motor vehicles at any port of entry, or any other place, remove the keys,” he cautioned. “We are seeing now, on three occasions, where there are accidents involving vehicles that were stolen from persons’ premises. These are cases where criminal elements were able to get access to the keys, had driven those vehicles, got into accidents and then abandoned them.
“We have had cases where persons were shot at from vehicles. We traced them back to rentals and private cars taken by those persons from point A to point B, and then smashed and abandoned them. We are again confronted with one such case where a vehicle, involved in an accident on Tuesday night, is in our custody and we don’t know who the driver was.”
Mr. Proctor added: “My appeal is first to all companies who rent vehicles to tourists. Please collect your vehicles from the ports of entry, or wherever else they were left, before sundown. There are criminals who are going to the ports and checking vehicles. If they can find the keys, they will drive to wherever they want to commit crimes… and then abandon the vehicles.
“Families and other persons, having vehicles in their yards, are also strongly advised to remove all keys, thus denying criminals an opportunity to take away the motor vehicles.”
