Crime Stoppers thanks the community for the more than 1,600 tips submitted since the program began in January 2009.

Many people wonder how Crime Stoppers keeps tips totally anonymous.

When you dial 1-800-222-TIPS, the call goes to a private telephone company in Virginia that then transfers your call to one of its own in-house phone lines before forwarding it on to an answering service in Texas. Even if one of the Texas operators had caller ID, which they don’t, the only number they would see is from Virginia, not the original caller’s number.

If someone were able to get the telephone records of the Texas answering service, the number recorded would be from the service in Virginia. The Virginia company purges all of its transfer records at the end of each month.

Web and text tips are handled in a similar fashion. The messages are routed to computers in Canada where it is legal to transfer your message to another computer before forwarding it on to Crime Stoppers. Even though Crime Stoppers can send messages back and forth, this makes it impossible for anyone to trace a message back to your computer or your cell phone.

Finally, special IRS rules permit all Crime Stoppers rewards to be paid in cash with no tax reporting. One of our volunteers will deliver the cash to you, at a time and place of your choosing, or, we will even hide it somewhere for you to pick up later.

Since the original Crime Stoppers organization began service in 1976, there are no known instances where an anonymous citizen's identity has ever been revealed using Crime Stoppers information.

If you know something, you can safely say something by submitting your information on any crimes at http://www.crimestoppersusvi.org or by calling 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) or by texting “USVI” plus your message to CRIMES (274637).