Beach bag thief turns out to be over-stayer
Police on Seven Mile Beach
(CNS): A 30-year-old Jamaican man who pleaded guilty to stealing a visitor’s bag from the beach is to be deported after also admitting to overstaying in the Cayman Islands. The thief was tracked down last week after police officers on foot patrol along Seven Mile Beach were alerted to the theft, which happened while the owner was swimming in the ocean. Officers pursued a man behaving suspiciously in the area but they did not catch him. Instead they turned to CCTV from the area and other relevant information from the community.
That led the community police to an address on Powell Smith Drive in West Bay, where the stolen bag was recovered. The man living at the address was arrested on suspicion of theft, and once he was in custody officers discovered he was overstaying and contacted the border control agency.
After obtaining and executing a search warrant for the residence, the police also found and recovered more stolen items that had been inside the woman’s bag.
After the man came clean about the theft and his immigration status, he was cautioned and sentenced to deportation and is expected to leave the island shortly.
Robert Graham, Superintendent of Uniform Operations, said the case showed how important cooperation across the community is in tackling crime.
“This case shows that keeping our beautiful beaches theft-free is a group effort,” he said.
“Thanks to the immediacy of the initial report from the visitor and the information received from the community, CPD officers were able to track the offender, make an arrest, recover stolen property and identify a separate immigration offence. This is a good example of the kind of enforcement we can deliver together,” Graham added.
Category: Border Control, Crime, Police
Don’t worry, after this they’ll announce another amnesty to let overstayers get off scot-free.
Just curious, what system has immigration in place to check whether people left the Island once their permit ran out? How frequently do they track down overstayers? What happens if someone is leaving through the airport after overstaying? Are they then banned from re-entry for x amount of years?
Nada
Unfortunately I have to repeat myself. There are no doubt some bad Jamaicans, but there are also some bad Caymanians, please remember that Jamaicans helped build this country, despite in many cases being very badly treated by their local employers.
And a lot of their employees are their own jamaicans
so am i missing something here… the police are not saying anything about prosecuting the criminal for the multiple offenses here like the thief !!!!! he should have been arrested correct !!!! once he is tried and sentenced for his offences then you deport him to serve his prison term in Jam
Then he stays here on Cayman’s dime for months or years while it drags on through the court process. Better to deport him now.
For sure he will be back , and very Soon . Gov should set up a confidential reward system where people that know him or many others , one phone call and the cash is yours .This could save a lot of money in trials and jail time . Somebody gonna be pissed of at these people and would be happy to get paid for dropping a dime . But payment Must be in cash ! No record of it on paper .
Another Jamaican criminal. Surprise surprise! If we don’t stop allowing them entry we will end up like Jamaican soon.
This is why immigration needs to halt the giving out of permits. Let the existing ones begin to expire and reduce the number of foreign workers.
The demographic make up of our society, the propensity to outside children in significant numbers, and the lack of enforcement of controls may make that reality arise soon. Part of the problem is a general lack of enforcement – as evidenced by the fact that the last four criminals reported on this website all seem to have overcome the now totally ineffective barriers to entry. Each comes from a different country (not just Jamaica).
Jamaican again???????
Yet another case where the “teef” runs off and the police can’t catch him. A large number of our police officers are too “large” and would have difficulty catching our average 250lb cruiseship passenger. Officers on patrol need to be selected from those that are fit. I hesitate to say it but maybe we need Jamaicans to catch a Jamaican.
Well there you go! Thanks Bush!!!!
And Alden who refused to stop or undo it when he could.
Importing crime now? No, that’s been happening for years and even more after McKeeva’s status give-aways in 2003. Soon we’ll have serial killers from other countries, God forbid!!
8:08 you are so right. Bush destroyed our country with status giveaways for votes. Now this is a result.
8:08 is much as I don’t like what both of the premiers has done , do you know when all of these criminals got their Cayman Status ?
Why is the name of this criminal not being reported? Where was he employed? How did he come to overstay?
CNS why haven’t you published his photo?
CNS: If we don’t publish a photo it’s because we don’t have a photo.
He will soon be back by canoe….
Tru dat. Fool Fool
This is why there are only Caymanians in Northward. Persons who come here Steal from people and damage our tourism product are not punished, not even a fine. This is a shame. This is why the CI has so much crime.
Ive been to Northward Prison and there are more different nationalities than you think. Im a Caymanian by the way, and if youre wondering what the crime I commited was, it was for having ganja in my system. Not asking for a pity party either, I refused to abide by the laws of the land and got what I deserved.
I think that there was a Immigration Law that was passed that said , after your permit expired that one had to provide information to Immigration that you are financially capable of supporting yourself to get and extention to stay or had to leave the island , I wonder if that Law has been repealed and done away with today . Maybe if that Law was still in place and enforced it could have prevented that robbery and many more .
The law has not changed. Just the politicians who do all they can to prevent its enforcement.
Only applies to people that abide by laws , which is somewhat rare here these days
You get the point that he overstayed right? The law is in place – in fact its not about showing he has means to live here, he has to leave unless he gets another employer – he just didn’t comply with it, and because the address they have for him is probably BS or he moved on Immigration is fairly powerless to do anything about it until he gets caught for something else.
Bullshit. They have enforcement units and the police at their disposal. They should literally be hunting down overstayers until they have a handle on the problem.
So, a foreign national comes here, overstays, steals from a tourist (a critical part of our economy) harming them and our reputation, evades arrest, gets caught, and receives no punishment other than a trip home that was warranted by his overstaying anyway?
No court? No prison? No fine? and the authorities celebrate it? Am I reading this right?
Who harboured the overstayer? Have they even checked? Do they care?
These idiots will destroy our country.
So the last three articles on CNS is about expats comitting crime. Expat molesting girl at Smith Cove. Expat stealing money from Tennis Club and expat over staying and stealing at the beach. Looks like we are importing crime now.
You missed out the 4th. Dodge.
Time to bring in finger-printing and biometric identification in the form of facial recognition every time you arrive by air , just like they do in the U.S.
That’s for everyone by the way , Tourists , Residents , Citizens …..
11.18pm It certainly makes a nice change.
8:41, remember it is his own country man who arrested him. Surprised it made the news at all. Ever notice how you no longer hear “spoke with a xxxxx accent” when they report armed robberies etc any longer?! Think they bother to ask? Or they chose to leave it out??!
he will be back next week probably and no one will be the wiser
He’s going to Jamaica in order address some ‘legal’ issues he has there too. He’s not going to be sunning himself at Negril, I can assure you.
Are you suggesting a criminal, who was known to be a criminal, was allowed to come here in the first place before they lived here and overstayed?
CCTV solves another crime. I thought I read on this site that the cameras was no good.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves there!
Where does it say that it was the government’s CCTV? It was probably footage from a private property.
Spend millions solve a purse snatching. Wow! Great return on investment.
But I thought all criminal activity in these islands are committed by “Caymanians” only !
He should have been beaten with a cat of nine and then deported, need to send a strong message to these criminals.
only around 90%….
Actually, much less, but keep drinking the cool-aid.
Cayman is 90% expats…
“Caymanian” a very broad noun these days.
In law it is actually quite clear, but given few bother to follow it, you are right in practice.
5.16pm Not a noun, clown.
What do they mean “the officers discovered he was overstaying and reported it to Border Control”? Does Border Control not automatically know who is overstaying and after (say) a 2 week grace, report it to the Police? What the hell is going on in this country?
Gone are days when the boys like Brady and OC used to chase the over stayers and round them up off eastern avenue. How many more are here like this that are breaking into homes and robbing people to survive?
You mean when people actually tried to robustly enforce the law with any degree of consistency.
At best we are plagued by astounding levels of incompetence with no accountability, all while the minister responsible is cycling in Monaco.
Police are not Border Control and would not know if he was an over stayer. He may have told them he was an over stayer or they found evidence on him to say so and then they called Border Control who was probably looking for him. Come on people it’s not that hard.
Overstaying is a crime. The police AND Border control are responsible for the identification of offenders. The police cannot simply say “not my job.” A school kid could design and implement systems to ensure timely reporting across law enforcement agencies. Are you suggesting Border Control are not giving details of overstayers to the police? This is just incompetence. It is embarassing, and it is harming Cayman.
You are correct. The sharing and actioning of relevant intelligence is not that hard at all. The clear fact that this easy stuff appears to not be undertaken is what makes it all the more intolerable, especially given the enormous resources dedicated to the authorities concerned.
These are some of the same guys who seem not to know which 37,000 people (effectively the entire adult population of the Cayman Islands) have unregistered vehicles – and have not dealt with it for 15 years.
Every Monday there should be a list (with photos and details) of all verified overstayers distributed to all law enforcement agencies, who should round them up and bring them to court. Easy to do the communicating bit, and with public support and actual enforcement, including against those who harbor overstayers, it will become easier to do the rounding up bit.
Instead of that the authorities seem to kiss their teeth and await their pensions.
The information is in a system. The police arrest the man, run his name through the system, and the overstaying notification comes up. Not seeing the issue.
Why did they have to give the system his name. Any proper system would have given them his name the moment he became an overstayers, and sent them out to find him a week later if he was still an overstayer.
Won’t be surprised if some fool here is pregnant for him.
You are right there 6.41, Jamaican men don’t use contraception.
Neither does low self esteem Cayman girls, 6:57.