Philipsburg: ---Recently the detective and forensic departments have been investigating several break-ins into several businesses on the island. During these investigations they have noticed that even businesses that are equipped with alarm systems have been broken into without the alarm system being activated.
The culprit or culprits involved in these break-ins are tremendously skillful in being able to bypass or deactivate these security systems. The detective department is hereby advising all business-owners to contact their security company and have their alarm system completely checked out and if necessary to have the system upgraded.
Business-owners should have their establishment and alarm system in their business checked on a regular basis. (Not because the alarm system did not go off, means that your business was not broken into. Business-owners should personally go to their establishment and check it out on weekends and holidays) said Police Spokesman Ricardo Henson.
Most alarm systems presently in use, are hooked-up to landline telephones and do not have a back-up system or a secondary alarm system. Once the communications in these lines have been unknowingly interrupted, there is no way to know what is going in your business until long after the break-in has taken place.
Business-owners that have security cameras installed should make sure, that the video-recorder is properly hidden and that this security-system is equipped with a secondary or back-up system at another location. When businesses that have security cameras are broken into, the culprits always take the video-system along with them, which they later dispose of.
If your business has a safe, make sure that the safe is not visible to the clients or anyone coming into the establishment. If this safe is also connected to an alarm-system, you should also make sure that it has a secondary or back-up system, in the event the safe is tampered with.
During a recent break-in at one of these establishments a substantial amount of male watches and gold chains were stolen. During the investigation done by the detective and Forensic department. found, that the telephone and electrical wires to that establishment were cut, causing the alarm not to be activated. If this establishment had a secondary or back-up system it would trigger the alarm and the police department would have been notified. The Detective department is also asking any-one who may have been approached to buy watches or any other type of jewelry not to do so and to immediately contact the police. The jewelry you are buying might be stolen.