Police in at least two Corporate Area divisions say that they have their eyes on several persons of questionable character who have taken up residence in upscale communities.

According to the cops, in recent years upscale communities including Cherry Gardens, Jacks Hill, Hope Pastures and Chancery Hall, have been invaded by persons suspected to have criminal ties to depressed, war-torn communities in the heart of the city.

“There is no doubt about it. They are not doing anything (criminal) in these (upscale) areas, but they sleep up there and then go down into the ghettos in the mornings where they have their domain,” Deputy Police Superintendent Altermoth ‘Parra’ Campbell, anti-crime boss at the St Andrew North Police Division, told the Observer.

Campbell, whose division houses communities such as Cherry Gardens, Chancery Hall and sections of Jacks Hill, said that these persons would normally retire to the communities late at nights and leave about midday under the disguise of decent law-abiding citizens.

While they were not officially wanted for criminal offences, they were often times “persons of interest” who play a commanding role in deadly rivalry in volatile communities, he said.

The lawman said the unscrupulous individuals shied away from contact with their neighbours and generally stay under the radar.

“Some of the persons who they live beside don’t even know them, because is not that they are seen watering their lawns or interacting with neighbours, or taking part in any community neighbourhood watch thing,” said Campbell. He added that the individuals were usually loaded with ill-gotten cash and able to afford the affluent lifestyle.

“They just don’t sleep in the ghetto where they have their operations going on; whether it be drugs or guns…They probably think that it (upscale communities) is safer when they close their eyes. A man wants to know that wherever he is sleeping is safe,” said Campbell.

An example of one such individual given by Deputy Superintendent McArthur Sutherland, head of crime for the St Andrew Central Division, is Ricardo Thomas, also called ‘Bully’, who was arrested at his home in Hope Pastures during a major police operation last October.

Thomas, according to the cops, was on their wanted list early last year and was said to be a player in a gang feud responsible for several deaths in the war-torn Cockburn Gardens community in St Andrew South, and in sections of St Catherine.

“He is one person of influence in my division…He has one of them big houses in Hope Pastures,” Sutherland said.

“There are persons of interest in the communities. They don’t physically fire the guns but they are believed to be involved in the drugs and guns underworld…They drive the crime thing, based on intelligence,” added the police official.

Another note-worthy person of influence, the cops said, is 42-year-old Junior Williams who fled the troubled Seaview Gardens community in St Andrew, following a dispute which claimed his brother’s life about two-years ago.

Williams was residing in Jacks Hill up until the wee hours of February 2 this year, when he and another man were gunned down inside the Metropolis strip club on Old Hope Road.

Former most wanted gang leader Joel Andem, was also captured in an upscale six-bedroom house during a pre-dawn operation by police and soldiers in Clarksonville, a quiet community deep in St Ann near the border with Clarendon.

In the aftermath of his capture, residents of the community said that they were unaware that they had been sharing their space with a man who had 27 criminal charges against him.

On October 30, 2005, ‘Clansman’ gang leader Donovan ‘Bulbie’ Bennett was shot dead when cops raided his upscale home in the secluded Clarendon community of Tanakay near Rock River.

Bennett, who had been on the run since 1995, was leader of the notorious Spanish Town-based Clansman gang, one of two gangs which operate in the old capital and are at each other’s throats for control of the town’s protection and extortion business.

Last year, alleged leader of the notorious ‘Stone Crusher’ gang Eldon Calvert, who was at the top of police most wanted list, was also captured in an upscale apartment in the rustic community of Wood Grove in St James.

Calvert, who was wanted in connection with several counts of murders and shootings in St James, had a $1 million bounty placed on his head.