SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior Re­porter

Shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

The faces of gangs in T&T have changed in the past two decades, as their lives are of­ten short-lived. Gang lead­ers live a life of no­to­ri­ety; just look at the meme­able Cedric “Burkie” Burke, who died dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

To­day, the T&T Guardian in­ves­ti­gates how gang cul­ture emerged, how it has evolved and how it im­pacts on crime in the coun­try.

In 2017, two years af­ter the Dr Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion as­sumed of­fice, then-At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi told the coun­try that the po­lice were keep­ing a close tab on some 2,484 sus­pect­ed gang mem­bers, whose names, where­abouts and al­leged ac­tiv­i­ties were known to the au­thor­i­ties.

A year lat­er, the An­ti-Gang Bill was unan­i­mous­ly passed in the Low­er House, which he said saw a re­duc­tion in gangs.

Al-Rawi said sta­tis­tics from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice showed that be­tween 2018 and 2020, the num­ber of gangs dropped from 211 to 129, while the to­tal num­ber of peo­ple in­volved in gangs de­creased from 2,400 to 1,044 dur­ing the same pe­ri­od.

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds al­so dis­closed that for the pe­ri­od 2015 to Ju­ly 2022, there were 1,181 gang-re­lat­ed mur­ders.

For the first six months of 2023, Hinds said the po­lice record­ed 242 mur­ders, of which 114 were gang-re­lat­ed.

In Jan­u­ary, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tion Rishi Singh dis­closed that of the 605 mur­ders record­ed last year, 245 were gang-re­lat­ed.

At last year’s launch of the Gang Re­duc­tion and Com­mu­ni­ty Em­pow­er­ment (GRACE) pro­gramme, the then-act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er Mc Don­ald Ja­cob said there were six main gangs op­er­at­ing in the coun­try. How­ev­er, he did not iden­ti­fy them.

Ja­cobs at­trib­uted 60 per cent of the coun­try’s mur­ders to gangs, while 80 per cent of shoot­ings and wound­ings were gang-re­lat­ed. He said to suc­cess­ful­ly hold gang mem­bers ac­count­able for their crimes, po­lice of­fi­cers need­ed more train­ing.

The po­lice have since ar­rest­ed and charged a hand­ful of men un­der the An­ti-Gang Act.

Among them was Calvin “Tyson” Lee of Port-of-Spain, who, in 2020, was charged with be­ing a gang leader and re­ceiv­ing a stolen mo­tor ve­hi­cle. The oth­ers were charged with sup­port­ing a gang.

Meet­ings with Man­ning

Sev­er­al of the coun­try’s most re­put­ed and feared gang lead­ers, who held se­cret meet­ings with prime min­is­ters, politi­cians and pub­lic of­fi­cials to bro­ker peace with war­ring gangs in ex­change for lu­cra­tive State con­tracts, po­si­tions and jobs, have been killed over the years.

The first meet­ing dates back to 1957, when T&T’s first Prime Min­is­ter and founder of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) par­ty, the late Dr Er­ic Williams, held talks with hench­men of the Marabun­tas and Des­per­a­does who were wag­ing war with each oth­er in Laven­tille. This re­sult­ed in the launch of the Spe­cial Works pro­gramme to cre­ate jobs for the un­em­ployed.

The pro­gramme was im­ple­ment­ed to con­trol the rogue el­e­ments but an analy­sis lat­er showed it brought no tan­gi­ble re­sults.

Fast-track to 2002, more than 45 years af­ter, where a group of well-known gang lead­ers com­pris­ing Mark Guer­ra, Ker­win “Fresh” Phillip, Her­bert “Screw-Up” John, Glen­roy “Ab­dul Mal­ick” Charles, Roger Gillard and Sean “Bill” Fran­cis sought to ne­go­ti­ate with then-Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, now de­ceased, to lead the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief (URP) pro­gramme dur­ing a meet­ing at the Am­bas­sador Ho­tel.

The gov­ern­ment caved in­to the gang lead­ers’ de­mands by pro­vid­ing them with cushy jobs, State projects and con­tracts which, it was al­leged, on­ly fur­ther fund­ed their il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties and cre­at­ed small pock­ets of law­less gangs which are now scat­tered in al­most every com­mu­ni­ty.

In 2006, Man­ning made a sec­ond at­tempt to bro­ker an­oth­er peace pact and met with 21 re­put­ed gang boss­es, de­scribed as “com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers”, at the Crowne Plaza ho­tel in Port-of-Spain.

The ob­jec­tive of that meet­ing was to stem the crime and mur­ders that were grow­ing in the Port-of-Spain dis­trict.

This too brought no re­sults, as many of the gang lead­ers from that meet­ing even­tu­al­ly died at the hands of a gun.

The Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment al­so ad­mit­ted to hold­ing talks with Laven­tille-based gang lead­ers in 2012.

Then na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Jack Warn­er con­firmed send­ing a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from his min­istry to have a dis­cus­sion with gang lead­ers at the St Paul Street Mul­ti-Pur­pose Fa­cil­i­ty in Laven­tille.

The out­come of that meet­ing was nev­er re­vealed.

On Mon­day, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley, dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence, point­ed out that the po­lice can­not and should not get in­volved in ne­go­ti­at­ing peace deals among war­ring fac­tions be­lieved to be re­spon­si­ble for a re­cent wave of shoot­ings and mur­ders along the East-West cor­ri­dor.

His com­ments fol­lowed a news­pa­per ar­ti­cle that stat­ed a “peace agree­ment” was struck af­ter of­fi­cers from the Port-of-Spain In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF) were able to arrange a deal be­tween gang boss­es of the Sixx and Ras­ta City gangs. The TTPS sub­se­quent­ly de­nied this re­port.

Mark Guer­ra

To­day, the T&T Guardian looks in­to the back­ground of some of the coun­try’s most no­to­ri­ous gang lead­ers who utilised state funds and dab­bled in cor­rup­tion to build their il­le­gal busi­ness­es.

The most re­put­ed among them was Guer­ra, who rose to promi­nence in 2002 when he was ap­point­ed na­tion­al ad­vi­sor in the URP pro­gramme un­der the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, which earned him over $150,000 per month in Na­tion­al Hous­ing Au­thor­i­ty re­fur­bish­ment projects and salaries for in­di­vid­u­als who proved to be ghost gangs.

Guer­ra used his po­si­tion, job and cor­rupt prac­tices to build his em­pire and fund his crim­i­nal gangs in Laven­tille, which even­tu­al­ly spread through­out the coun­try and even the prison sys­tem.

Guer­ra’s shady deal­ings in the URP brought in loads of cash and gave him ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers over the grass­roots con­stituen­cy. De­scribed as the “Don of Laven­tille”, Guer­ra used his ill-got­ten gains to re­cruit dozens of gang mem­bers in John John, Do­ra­ta Street, Bev­er­ly Hills and Pash­ley Street who were ei­ther un­em­ployed, school dropouts, vic­tims of pover­ty or came from sin­gle-par­ent homes.

His il­le­gal op­er­a­tions al­so made him a prime sus­pect in sev­er­al killings and a man marked for death.

In a mat­ter of months, Guer­ra owned a man­sion in John John, Laven­tille, a string of ex­pen­sive prop­er­ties, a BMW, sports­cars and had hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars in his bank ac­count.

As Guer­ra’s em­pire grew, new gangs in St Barb’s and East Port-of-Spain emerged, mak­ing him an un­stop­pable force.

A fa­ther of 13, Guer­ra, a Libya-trained marks­man, open­ly boast­ed of his de­sire to es­tab­lish two gangs and fired shots at the car car­ry­ing then-pres­i­dent Noor Has­sanali’s wife Za­lay­har in 1989.

Af­fec­tion­ate­ly called the “Boss” by his mem­bers and Laven­tille res­i­dents, Guer­ra, who was a “lieu­tenant” in the Ja­maat Al-Mus­limeen, showed his al­le­giance to the PNM by open­ly cam­paign­ing in sev­er­al mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies in the 2002 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Guer­ra, how­ev­er, did not live to en­joy his lux­u­ri­ous lifestyle and wealth af­ter be­ing gunned down on his Waller­field farm in 2005.

At the time of his killing, po­lice es­ti­mat­ed there were 40 crim­i­nal gangs in op­er­a­tion, which ex­tend­ed from Care­nage to San Juan.

One the­o­ry be­hind Guer­ra’s mur­der was that a dis­grun­tled fac­tion of his mem­bers felt he had grown too big for his shoes and that they were on­ly be­ing fed the crumbs while he lived in the lap of lux­u­ry.

New gang lead­ers emerge

The mur­der of Guer­ra left a vac­u­um in which as­pi­rants to his throne be­gan wip­ing out one an­oth­er in their quest to con­trol the drug turf and state funds un­der the URP pro­gramme.

It al­so trig­gered a fresh gen­er­a­tion of gang lead­ers who formed the G-Unit, Ras­ta City, Mus­lim, Every­body Gets it (EBG), Sixx, Sev­en and Po­lice gangs in Port-of-Spain.

The birth of these gangs un­leashed crimes such as kid­nap­ping for ran­som, mur­ders, land grab­bing, rob­beries, drug and gun traf­fick­ing, ex­tor­tion, mon­ey laun­der­ing, pros­ti­tu­tion, hu­man traf­fick­ing and il­le­gal quar­ry­ing.

Back then, the G-Unit gang was run by re­put­ed gang leader Ker­win “Fresh” Phillip, while An­ton “Boom­bay” Boney man­aged Guer­ra’s turf.

These op­pos­ing sides of­ten squared off with each oth­er for su­prema­cy and sur­vival, re­sult­ing in rapid gun­fire echo­ing in the hills of Laven­tille and lives be­ing lost.

The gangs even­tu­al­ly grew to 150 backed by 1,000 mem­bers as they spread their ten­ta­cles through­out the East-West cor­ri­dor, which trig­gered a trail of bat­tles, blood­shed and bod­ies.

One year af­ter Guer­ra’s killing, gun­men tar­get­ted “Ab­dul Mal­ick”, whose as­sets and wealth, po­lice es­ti­mat­ed, was $10 mil­lion from URP projects.

In 2017, “Fresh”, who was sub­con­tract­ed to build a new health cen­tre at Ox­ford Street in Port-of-Spain, met a bru­tal death. His at­tack­ers pumped 20 bul­lets in­to his body, which sparked reprisal killings.

At the time of his death, “Fresh” had al­ready ex­pand­ed his base from Char­ford Court, Port-of-Spain, to Mt D’or, Mal­oney, San­gre Grande and even En­ter­prise in Ch­agua­nas.

In 2008, Her­bert “Screw-Up” John was shot dead at a job site where he was sub­con­tract­ed to build a re­tain­ing wall worth hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars.

Short­ly af­ter Sean “Bill” Fran­cis, who many de­scribed as a “God­fa­ther,” mover and shak­er in his Mor­vant com­mu­ni­ty, met his death.

Armed men opened fire on “Bill” in 2008 while was he stand­ing a short dis­tance from his Mor­vant home.

Fran­cis ce­ment­ed pop­u­lar sup­port in the East-West cor­ri­dor through his URP job as an ad­min­is­tra­tor in charge of Re­gion II, Port-of-Spain, where Guer­ra had em­bed­ded him­self. His ma­noeu­vring through the URP made “Bill” a glo­ri­fied gang­ster and na­tion­al fig­ure.

Al­so, his hi­er­ar­chy in the pro­gramme pit­ted him against Guer­ra.

Well-known gang leader Meryn “Cud­joe” Al­lam­by, de­scribed as the Robin Hood in Laven­tille, was al­so am­bushed and killed in 2008 when he went to in­ves­ti­gate the mur­ders of two peo­ple close to him.

Al­lam­by, who al­ways had body­guards and hench­men around him, threw cau­tion to the wind and went to the mur­der scene along the Main Road in Aranguez where armed men fired at him, killing him on the spot.

Gun­men al­so went for An­tho­ny “Thir­teen” De Vi­gnes and Shel­don “Crock” Scott in 2008.

“Crock”, who po­lice say had mur­dered over two dozen peo­ple, was killed with a sin­gle gun­shot to his face while stand­ing at Fa­ti­ma Trace, Laven­tille. He was Guer­ra’s main hench­man and had been in­volved in an on­go­ing gang war with a Ja­maat mem­ber.

In 2013, David “Jah” An­drews, who took over the reins of the G-Unit from “Fresh”, was al­so gunned down.

Cen­tral was al­so rocked by the 2016 killing of Sel­wyn “Robo­cop” Alex­is, a well-known gang leader and crim­i­nal mas­ter­mind in En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas.

Men car­ry­ing high-pow­ered weapons opened fire on “Robo­cop” at his car wash busi­ness on Free­dom Street.

Alex­is, 52, be­came in­fa­mous na­tion­al­ly for his al­leged crim­i­nal ex­ploits for more than a decade. Al­though he had been charged with ex­tor­tion and sev­er­al kid­nap­pings, he was nev­er con­vict­ed.

The North Coast’s most feared gang leader and drug lord, Vaughn “Sand­man” Mieres, was al­so wiped out in 2019 at his La Cuevas home with his wife Ali­ta “Let­ty” De­here and two oth­ers.

In 2017, “Sand­man”, who be­came an un­touch­able along the North Coast, was ar­rest­ed and charged with con­spir­a­cy to com­mit mur­der against Alex­is.

An­ton “Boom­bay” Boney, the sec­ond-largest gang leader in the coun­try, was sprayed with bul­lets in 2021 while dri­ving his SUV on the south­bound lane of the Uri­ah But­ler High­way. His death led to reprisal killings in Laven­tille which kept the po­lice busy.

“Boom­bay” was de­tained in 2011 in con­nec­tion with the al­leged plot to kill then-prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. He was al­so de­tained for a to­tal of sev­en days “for in­quiries” and was re­leased on De­cem­ber 5, 2011, with­out any charge be­ing laid against him.

The gang leader sued the State and won af­ter a High Court Judge de­ter­mined his de­ten­tion was un­law­ful.

How­ev­er, his at­tempt to re­trieve $500,000 in dam­ages was re­duced to $70,000.

Last June, Dave Ju­nior Nes­bit, aka Ab­dul Ma­lik and leader of the Un­ruly Isis gang in Ch­agua­nas, was killed at his En­ter­prise home.

Oth­er gang lead­ers who were killed or died:

No­vem­ber 2022: Kalefe Pierre, of Up­per Sixth Street, Mal­ick, was pumped with bul­lets at a house in Care­nage.

Ju­ly 2022: Sher­man Hinds was killed dur­ing a shootout with war­ring gangs in Diego Mar­tin.

May 2022: Dar­nell Singh was shot dead while cut­ting cop­per ca­ble wire near his Bom­bay Street, St James home.

Feb­ru­ary 2021: Jar­ron Cal­liste, alias “Kite­man”, of Mal­ick, suc­cumbed to gun­shot in­juries at his Mc Comie Street, Tacarigua home.

Ju­ly 2019: Dex­ter “Pull Skin” Joseph was killed at a par­lour in Laven­tille.

Ju­ly 2019: Aki­ni “Dole” Adam was shot dead by po­lice at Sea Lots.

Sep­tem­ber 2020: Cedric “Burkie” Burke suc­cumbed to the COVID-19 virus at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal.

2011: Kelon Re­ece was gunned down in Fyz­abad days af­ter be­ing re­leased from prison.

Esti­mat­ed num­ber of gang mem­bers for each year

2015: 1,084

2016: 2,038

2017: 2,484

2018: 2,400

2019: 1,462

2020: 1,044