As the probe in­to the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) in­ten­si­fies, fo­cus is now be­ing turned to an­oth­er spy unit – this time one op­er­at­ing with­in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

The unit, known as the Re­search and An­a­lyt­i­cal Unit (RAU), re­ports on­ly to the Spe­cial Branch (SB) and falls un­der the re­mit of Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds. It is head­ed by Cor­po­ral Brent Clement.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the unit pro­vid­ed Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s Gov­ern­ment with the in­for­ma­tion on some of the is­sues that led to the sus­pen­sion of SSA di­rec­tor Ma­jor Roger Best and the start of the in­ter­nal probe in­to its op­er­a­tions.

The RAU, which is equipped with cam­eras and in­ter­cept equip­ment, is heav­i­ly sup­port­ed with train­ing and equip­ment by a for­eign gov­ern­ment, sources re­vealed.

How­ev­er, sources not­ed that there was fric­tion be­tween the RAU’s Clement and sus­pend­ed SSA di­rec­tor Best over the roles and func­tions of both en­ti­ties.

“What has been done now is the RAU has be­come the unit through the TTPS for ac­cess for in­ter­cep­tion of elec­tron­ic de­vices, which is a mat­ter of grave con­cern as SSA is sup­posed to be the sole body for con­trol of in­ter­cep­tion, as they (SSA) have the con­trol mech­a­nisms to pre­vent these sys­tems from be­ing ma­nip­u­lat­ed or abused,” one in­tel­li­gence source told Guardian Me­dia, while ex­press­ing con­cerns about the re­mit of the RAU.

The source added, “When an ex­ter­nal agency out­side the SSA has such equip­ment to use with­out be­ing mon­i­tored and record­ed as to whose de­vices were be­ing in­ter­cept­ed (as SSA does), then such strin­gent mea­sures would not be avail­able, the equip­ment then abused for the wrong pur­pos­es, hence al­low­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty for this unit to be used po­lit­i­cal­ly.”

The RAU ini­tial­ly fell un­der the TTPS’ Cy­ber Crime Unit.

An SSA of­fi­cial told Guardian Me­dia that the RAU “is fast be­com­ing an en­ti­ty un­to it­self”. The source told Guardian Me­dia that a very se­nior Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter in­sist­ed that the SSA give the RAU the abil­i­ty to do in­ter­cep­tion.

Con­tact­ed on the mat­ter yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley re­it­er­at­ed that he does not dis­cuss mat­ters of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty with the me­dia.

De­spite this, he con­firmed, “There is a unit of the Po­lice Ser­vice that does re­search and analy­sis. I do not know who is the staff there and they most cer­tain­ly do not re­port to me or the min­is­ter. How­ev­er, it is com­mon knowl­edge that the Spe­cial Branch, on mat­ters of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, pro­vides reg­u­lar re­ports to the Prime Min­is­ter, who holds the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil of the Cab­i­net.”

Dr Row­ley had pre­vi­ous­ly said Best was sent on leave based on trou­bling in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC) by the TTPS. The in­for­ma­tion, he said, war­rant­ed dras­tic in­ter­ven­tion.

On March 2, Best was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave and Brigadier An­tho­ny Phillips-Spencer, T&T’s then-Am­bas­sador to the Unit­ed States, was ap­point­ed act­ing SSA di­rec­tor.

For months, in­tel­li­gence of­fi­cials tried to raise con­cerns to Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials about chal­lenges with­in the SSA un­der di­rec­tor Best, in­clud­ing the hir­ing prac­tices which by­passed a prop­er manda­to­ry vet­ting process for the or­gan­i­sa­tion; the con­flu­ence of church mem­bers at the top of the agency who were be­ing heav­i­ly in­flu­enced by Pas­tor Ian Brown; the chal­lenges be­ing faced with Best giv­en his re­li­gious pro­cliv­i­ties (he is an el­der at Brown’s church); and op­er­a­tions tak­ing place which were be­yond the re­mit of the SSA.

The Gov­ern­ment has sought in­ter­na­tion­al as­sis­tance to de­ter­mine how much and to what ex­tent the State’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus was com­prised and how to ad­dress it ef­fec­tive­ly.

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on the is­sue, for­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Gary Grif­fith said when he be­came com­mis­sion­er, the unit was dis­or­gan­ised.

“We pro­vid­ed the struc­ture for it to have ca­pa­bil­i­ty to as­sist the in­ves­tiga­tive arms of the TTPS, in terms of util­i­sa­tion of tech­nol­o­gy. Ob­vi­ous­ly, not for in­ter­cep­tion. That should on­ly be un­der the SSA. We pro­vid­ed all the re­sources,” he said.

“The con­cern that has been brought to my at­ten­tion is that the RAU is no longer just a unit to do an­a­lyt­i­cal re­search but to be in­volved in ques­tion­able ac­tiv­i­ty that may very well be not on­ly un­eth­i­cal but il­le­gal. It is up to the po­lice to con­firm whether the RAU ac­tu­al­ly has in­ter­cept ca­pa­bil­i­ties. If that is case, on­ly the SSA has the struc­ture and pol­i­cy to en­sure that in­ter­cept de­vices can­not be abused by politi­cians.”

Ac­cord­ing to the TTPS’ web­site, “The Spe­cial Branch is re­spon­si­ble for in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing in mat­ters of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and or­gan­ised crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, so as to bet­ter serve the in­ves­tiga­tive and op­er­a­tional arms of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice. It is al­so re­spon­si­ble for the pro­vi­sion of pro­tec­tion to high-lev­el state of­fi­cials and for­eign dig­ni­taries.”

The Spe­cial Branch, ac­cord­ing to the web­site, in­ves­ti­gates peo­ple sus­pect­ed of be­ing in­volved in sub­ver­sive ac­tiv­i­ties; in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing and pro­cess­ing; con­ducts in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to re­quests from for­eign­ers for work per­mits; pro­vides per­son­al pro­tec­tion to the Pres­i­dent, Prime Min­is­ter as well as lo­cal and for­eign dig­ni­taries; pro­vides se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices and dis­creet gath­er­ing of in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to crime and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

Last week, the Sun­day Guardian re­port­ed that 12 SSA of­fi­cials were fired af­ter nine of them were iden­ti­fied as be­ing in­volved in se­ri­ous crim­i­nal con­duct. Their guns were seized and tak­en for foren­sic test­ing.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the probe, which was ini­tial­ly linked to three mur­ders, has ex­pand­ed to in­clude oth­er in­di­vid­u­als, in­clud­ing a well-known, al­leged gang­ster.

It was the mur­der of Andy Daniel, a CCTV con­trac­tor who was the hus­band of SSA Deputy Di­rec­tor of In­tel­li­gence Joanne Daniel, which alert­ed the Gov­ern­ment that there was some ex­po­sure to the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Guardian Me­dia was told that po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing leads in­to oth­er crimes which were linked to SSA of­fi­cials.

Last week, at a sod-turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny, Dr Row­ley al­lud­ed to the SSA hav­ing strong ties to crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

“As I speak to you now, the prob­lem has mul­ti­plied be­cause for the last two weeks, we have been deal­ing with the State’s con­tri­bu­tion to that prob­lem, where the state au­thor­i­ty in po­si­tion of trust has sur­rep­ti­tious­ly bro­ken down and the ca­lyp­so that we lis­ten to, Who’s Go­ing to Guard the Guards, be­came the most per­ti­nent ques­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go be­cause the state agen­cies had be­come one with the crim­i­nal agen­cies,” Row­ley said then.