Crime tipsters can now submit tips online

The NMI Crime Stoppers unveiled a new way of giving tips related to crimes, with the launching of its website Thursday night. The new method will complement the group’s hotline, which will continue to receive tips from the community.

According to the group, the website makes it possible for anyone with Internet access to submit anonymous tips online.

“We’ve had a website on for about a year, but we’ve added a function through an Internet company out of Pueblo, Colorado that allows us to take tips about crimes here in the CNMI. Those tips are taken securely and sent to Pueblo through an encrypted program, and that tip comes to us,” said Crime Stoppers chair Jim Arenovsky. “Once it’s sent to us it is then erased at the source in Pueblo. So if we lose it, there’s no record of it.”

Arenovsky reiterated that the organization is not involved in the investigation of criminal acts; instead, it forwards tips and any other information it receives from tipsters to the Department of Public Safety.

“We don’t want to know your name or any information about you,” he said. “All we want is the information about any crime.”

Arenovsky said the addition of the online system would serve as a “plus” and would hopefully increase the amount of tips they receive.

“The beauty of this new function is it gives a person the opportunity to type a lot of information,” he said. “It even gives opportunity for a person to give a photo. Since we live in a small community, people sometimes feel reluctant to call in because chances are, the person receiving the call might know you. By typing it in, there’s no way to be traced. Hopefully it takes the level of anonymity to another level.”

When giving a tip, an individual will be given a code number, which will serve as a code name. The code name will be used when the organization hands rewards for tips leading to an arrest.

Arenovsky also stressed the importance of the media in helping solve criminal cases.

“The media plays an important role in sending messages to the public. If the media does not work, how will the public know about crimes that take place? And if the public don’t know, we don’t get tips. [All of us]—law enforcement, media, and community—have important roles.”

Since its inception in April 18, 1989, the NMI Crime Stopper has provided information that has resulted in 210 cases being solved—two of which were homicide cases, as well as about 167 arrests.

About $197,793 worth of stolen property and $2.38 million worth of narcotics have been recovered.

So far, the NMI Crime Stoppers has paid out a total of $10,150 in rewards. Funds for the rewards are generated through donations, courtesy of various agencies on island, as well as an annual softball tournament usually held early in the year.