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alexk
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Executive manager of Crime Stoppers Garland Samuel is reassuring the public that the international crime-stopping organisation operates anonymously and will never ask callers to identify themselves.
His comments came after a tipster claimed she received a follow-up call from a man purporting to be a police officer from Crime Stoppers who requested that she divulge confidential information about herself.
But in an interview, Samuel said Crime Stoppers does not operate that way and will never ask callers to reveal their identity. He said callers are given a tip number and if the tip leads to arrests, the caller will get a reward.
He said there are no police officers working at Crime Stoppers.
Samuel said Crime Stoppers does not track calls but passes on tips to the police for investigation.
“We want to remind people that we are not the police and we are an independent non-government organisation that is part of the international body of Crime Stoppers. There is no call tracing and no facility to take a message or to call back people once a tip is received. The system is totally anonymous and we have operated that way since we commenced operations since 1999. People should trust us and remember that Crime Stoppers upholds the anonymity of our callers.
The integrity of our system has never been compromised,” Samuel said.
Because Crime Stoppers doesn’t keep track of a caller’s record, Samuel said there was no way that anyone could pass information about any caller. He noted that over the years the number of tips received by Crime Stoppers has increased. Statistics show that up to April 2018, Crime Stoppers received 586,493 calls of which 19,586 were tips. Since its inception, information supplied by Crime Stoppers has led to the recovery of over $20 million in stolen property.
Samuel urged citizens to call 800-TIPS to report any wrongdoing.