DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Dr Dwayne Gibbs said the award of gov­ern­ment con­tracts to gang lead­ers fu­elled the record num­bers of ex­tor­tions he ob­served dur­ing his tenure from Ju­ly 2010 to 2012.

He com­ment­ed on the is­sue fol­low­ing a Sun­day Guardian re­port on the mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar busi­ness cre­at­ed by gang mem­bers who de­mand mon­ey by men­ace from small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es across the coun­try.

In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia pub­lished on Fri­day, a con­trac­tor de­tailed his har­row­ing or­deal and pro­vid­ed video and au­dio record­ings of an al­leged gang leader de­mand­ing $30,000 a month from his com­pa­ny to en­sure that his fam­i­ly and work­site were not at­tacked. The gang­ster al­so de­mand­ed jobs for mem­bers of his crim­i­nal gang.

The con­trac­tor has since gone in­to hid­ing af­ter he re­ceived death threats for re­port­ing the mat­ter to the po­lice and mak­ing the in­for­ma­tion pub­lic.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions sent via email about the in­crease in ex­tor­tions, Gibbs said the crime has been a chal­lenge for the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) for years.

“Ex­tor­tion in many forms, not just the crimes per­pe­trat­ed against busi­ness own­ers, were oc­cur­ring in Trinidad and To­ba­go when I was there,” he said.

“Were they promi­nent? This would de­pend on your per­spec­tive of what promi­nent means. For ex­am­ple, at the time I was there, you had drug and gang lead­ers ex­tort­ing neigh­bour­hoods and in­di­vid­u­als to do the work need­ed to sat­is­fy the gov­ern­ment con­tracts that the gang lead­ers had been award­ed. There was al­so at the time ex­tor­tion of busi­ness own­ers and lead­ers.”

The for­mer top cop said crimes in­volv­ing ex­tor­tion, as well as prop­er­ty-re­lat­ed dis­putes that some­times end in fa­tal­i­ties, ought to be stamped out along with the oth­er vi­o­lent crimes that oc­cur in T&T.

Gibbs said while he could not de­scribe com­mon­al­i­ties among vic­tims of these crimes, it was and re­mains a press­ing is­sue.

“I can’t speak on the pro­file of the in­di­vid­u­als ex­tort­ed, nor on the mea­sures utilised to de­ter the prob­lem... on­ly that these crimes make up part of the over­all crime sta­tis­tics, rates and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties ex­hib­it­ed and per­pe­trat­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

Un­der the Lar­ce­ny Act, any per­son who de­mands prop­er­ty or any­thing valu­able by men­ace—which in­cludes threats of vi­o­lence, in­jury, or ac­cu­sa­tion–with the in­tent to ex­tort, is li­able to im­pris­on­ment for 15 years. Any per­son who de­mands any­thing that can be stolen, with in­tent to steal said item, is li­able to im­pris­on­ment for five years.