Despite some of the crime in the country taking place in areas that are considered to be volatile, a number of wanted individuals have been hiding in places where they are not expected to be.

The police have managed to track down some of these persons in upscale communities or high-end guest houses. Numbered among them is Andre Bryan, otherwise called ‘Blackman’, the reputed leader of the Blackman Gang.

The Blackman Gang is a breakaway of the notorious Spanish Town-based Clansman Gang. He and some of his relatives were picked up at a house in upper

St Andrew on March 4. Police investigations revealed that they were paying a monthly rental charge of US$1,500 (approximately J$190,000).

Last September, Marlon Perry, aka ‘Duppy Film’ who was the country’s most wanted person, spent his last night in a beachside guesthouse in Port Morant, St Thomas, before he was killed in a shoot-out with the police.

Dahlia Garrick, acting head of the Corporate Communications Unit of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, said that since the advent of lottery scamming, the police have noticed that some criminals integrate into the established middle- and upper-class communities to try to avoid detection.

“Criminals sometimes, in trying to stay under the radar or escape the scrutiny, will oftentimes integrate themselves into established communities,” she told THE WEEKEND STAR.

Garrick said that some of these criminals carry out criminal actions in areas that are consider to be volatile and then return to their homes in more developed areas.

“Just like a nine to five, they consider that as their way of illicitly making a living, so they will sometime go to other places to commit the act and return to communities, living as normal law-abiding citizens,” she said.

Garrick is asking persons to get to know their neighbours and alert the police if they witness abnormal behaviour in their communities.

“Sometimes, it is not until something happen that you say, ‘Oh my God, that person has been living next door to me for how long’,” she said.