A number of cops have been taken into custody as senior police investigators carry out a probe into a "major criminal activity".

Assistant Commissioner Novlette Grant, whose Professional Standards Branch is among the units probing the cops, declined to give details of the alleged criminal activity and the number of policemen taken into custody.

"Details can't be released at this time as we do not want to prejudice the investigations," Grant told the Observer.
However, an informed police source said the cops have been implicated in a car-stealing ring. At least one high-ranking officer, the source said, is among those being investigated.

In the meantime, the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN) reported late yesterday that a policeman was earlier in the day arrested in Kemps Hill, Clarendon after he was allegedly found with a substance resembling cocaine.

Superintendent Ionie Ramsay-Nelson, the director of the CCN, said forensic tests are to be carried out on the substance taken from the cop. The policeman, she said, could also face charges of illegal possession of ammunition.

Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas, who took over the leadership of the force in January this year, told the recent annual conference of the Jamaica Police Federation that members of the constabulary were involved in drug running, corruption and other forms of criminality. Some of the cops, Thomas said, were supplying criminals with bullets, while others use police vehicles to load and escort drugs.

Last week, Thomas told 20 regional senior police officers at the close of an eight-week regional commanders course at the Jamaica Constabulary Staff College in Twickenham Park, St Catherine that they should not relegate corruption in its ranks to the back burner.

A part of the mandate of the Jamaica Constabulary's Professional Standards Branch, which officially started operations on June 1, is to stamp out corruption in the force.

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