Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

AND Mark Bas­sant

The Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU) has un­earthed yet an­oth­er plot to kill Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Gary Grif­fith, this time in­volv­ing eight Venezue­lan na­tion­als who were ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in Trinidad on Wednes­day night.

Ac­cord­ing to a con­fi­den­tial re­port at­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the in­di­vid­u­als, be­lieved to be ex-mil­i­tary per­son­nel of the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment, are re­port­ed­ly be brought in­to the coun­try un­der the com­mand of a well-known com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist and al­leged gang leader in the Port-of-Spain area. In­tel­li­gence al­so in­di­cates that the men are un­der the lead­er­ship of a Venezue­lan OCG leader who is cur­rent­ly serv­ing a five-year sen­tence in the T&T prison sys­tem.

It is be­lieved that the ex-mil­i­tary per­son­nel are be­ing brought in­to the coun­try to as­sas­si­nate Grif­fith and a Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) of­fi­cer, who was al­leged­ly part of the team that was in­volved in the po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing of Ras­ta City OCG mem­ber Aki­ni “Dole” Adams on Ju­ly 26, 2019.

“The planned method of at­tack is by Rock­et Pro­pelled Grenades (RPG),” the re­port stat­ed.

The Sun­day Guardian al­so re­port­ed an­oth­er threat against Grif­fith, SORT of­fi­cers and ASP Roger Alexan­der was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed. How­ev­er, in­tel­li­gence in­di­cat­ed Alexan­der was not a tar­get in the sec­ond as­sas­si­na­tion plot.

Since the dis­cov­ery of the sec­ond plot, the SIU has made sev­er­al rec­om­men­da­tions, in­clud­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Grif­fith di­rect­ly in­form­ing him of the threat to his life and that du­ty of care should be car­ried out on Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team of­fi­cers re­sid­ing in the West­ern Di­vi­sion.

Po­lice sta­tions lo­cat­ed near coastal ar­eas are now on high alert over the pos­si­ble in­flux of il­le­gal Span­ish-speak­ing im­mi­grants at known il­le­gal ports of en­try.

The T&T Coast Guard is al­so said to be on alert to pay spe­cial at­ten­tion to ves­sels that may be trans­port­ing il­le­gal Span­ish im­mi­grants, with a fo­cus on those with mil­i­tary train­ing or bear­ing or sport­ing tat­toos that iden­ti­fy them as gang-af­fil­i­at­ed.

The Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion­al Com­man­der has since been in­struct­ed that pa­trols be briefed of the in­for­ma­tion at hand and to en­sure spe­cial at­ten­tion is paid to the ac­tiv­i­ties of the named al­leged gang leader in the SIU re­port.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said he is aware of the lat­est threat.

“The day that these crim­i­nal car­tels do not want me dead, it is on­ly then that I would be con­cerned as it means that I am not seen as a threat to them,” Grif­fith said.