A GUARDIAN ME­DIA IN­VES­TI­GA­TION

Close to 40 promi­nent busi­ness­men—from south, cen­tral and east Trinidad—who are linked to ma­jor drug and hu­man traf­fick­ers, gun run­ners, gang lead­ers and mur­der­ers fu­elling the mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar crim­i­nal en­ter­prise in this coun­try, have been named in a po­lice in­tel­li­gence re­port.

These busi­ness­men, who are be­ing pro­tect­ed by some mem­bers of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice on their pay­roll, are among 100 peo­ple of in­ter­est iden­ti­fied in a con­fi­den­tial 2019 po­lice in­tel­li­gence re­port ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia. This news­pa­per has with­held the names in the re­port due to the sen­si­tiv­i­ty of the mat­ter.

The re­port is the cul­mi­na­tion of months of prob­ing and sur­veil­lance by spe­cif­ic in­tel­li­gence-gath­er­ing units with­in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and the ex­er­cise was un­der­tak­en to “iden­ti­fy per­sons of in­ter­est who were al­leged­ly in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty us­ing the guise of le­git­i­mate busi­ness­es or have di­rec­tors in these busi­ness­es that are in­clined to crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty,” as the po­lice ser­vice at­tempts to tight­en its reign on the ne­far­i­ous un­der­world ac­tiv­i­ties which have been fu­elling the spi­ralling crime lev­els in T&T.

These busi­ness­men have formed sym­bi­ot­ic re­la­tion­ships with the un­der­world to rake in mil­lions and are con­tribut­ing to the ris­ing homi­cides and in­creased law­less­ness now per­vad­ing the coun­try.

The eye-open­ing re­port iden­ti­fies peo­ple who have reg­is­tered busi­ness­es which they are us­ing as fronts to run lu­cra­tive hu­man traf­fick­ing and pros­ti­tu­tion rings.

Guardian Me­dia, in its spe­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tion on sex slav­ery done in May, had iden­ti­fied sev­er­al com­plic­it law en­force­ment of­fi­cials who have aid­ed and abet­ted these busi­ness­men.

The busi­ness­men pay hit­men to ex­e­cute peo­ple who in­ter­fere with their busi­ness and il­lic­it op­er­a­tions, hire gang lead­ers in par­tic­u­lar ar­eas to pro­vide se­cu­ri­ty on var­i­ous projects, or move con­tra­band and as­sist with oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties.

But now, these il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties and the spe­cif­ic busi­ness­men be­hind them have been doc­u­ment­ed by the po­lice and their names have been sub­mit­ted to the po­lice hi­er­ar­chy for ac­tion.

The ques­tion, how­ev­er, re­mains: Why hasn’t the po­lice act­ed on some of these “big fish” if they were aware of their ac­tiv­i­ties for some time?

A se­nior po­lice source, speak­ing un­der the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said “That is the prob­lem. We have cer­tain arms gath­er­ing the in­tel­li­gence, but then de­cide to hand it to the op­er­a­tional arm of the di­vi­sion to ex­e­cute. But these in­tel­li­gence-gath­er­ing units al­so have the ca­pac­i­ty to act and move on these per­sons once they be­lieve the in­for­ma­tion is sol­id. There is no rea­son to wait on an­oth­er unit to do it if you feel strong­ly enough.”

Who are the busi­ness­men and what they do

• One man owns a mil­lion-dol­lar busi­ness and is in­volved in su­per­mar­kets and night clubs. The re­port stat­ed he is the “leader of an elab­o­rate pros­ti­tu­tion and hu­man smug­gling ring and in­volved in mon­ey laun­der­ing.”

• A busi­ness­man who owns a su­per­mar­ket and restau­rant us­es these busi­ness­es as a le­git­i­mate front to fa­cil­i­tate “hu­man traf­fick­ing and pros­ti­tu­tion of Asian na­tion­als,” ac­cord­ing to the re­port.

Sources who spoke to Guardian Me­dia about this in­di­vid­ual said af­ter 19 South Amer­i­can girls had been res­cued from homes in West­moor­ings and Stir Fry Restau­rant along Ari­api­ta Av­enue in Feb­ru­ary this year, that in­di­vid­ual has fea­tured promi­nent­ly in their in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Po­lice said he was one of the ma­jor play­ers in the traf­fick­ing of Asian girls in­to this coun­try.

• An­oth­er busi­ness­man who is the own­er of a ho­tel and sev­er­al bars has been de­scribed as a ma­jor play­er “in an elab­o­rate pros­ti­tu­tion and hu­man smug­gling ring in south Trinidad.” Sources told Guardian Me­dia that he “is very con­nect­ed and al­so has law en­force­ment per­son­nel in his pock­ets.”

• An­oth­er man from south-west Trinidad, the re­port stat­ed, has tight con­nec­tions in the hu­man traf­fick­ing and pros­ti­tu­tion rings in the South.

• A man de­scribed as a “king­pin in­volved in drugs, arms and peo­ple traf­fick­ing from Venezuela.” In­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve some of his il­lic­it gains have been used to pur­chase sev­er­al busi­ness­es. Se­nior sources fa­mil­iar with the un­der­world fig­ure said he was “well con­nect­ed and re­source­ful and had po­lice of­fi­cers at his beck and call.”

• There is a strate­gic al­liance be­tween this "king­pin” and a busi­ness­man who owns a very pop­u­lar restau­rant. The re­port stat­ed that the busi­ness­man is sus­pect­ed “to be in­volved in a drug dis­tri­b­u­tion net­work.”

• An east Trinidad busi­ness­man who owns a pop­u­lar bar is re­port­ed­ly “in­volved in pros­ti­tu­tion and hu­man smug­gling.”

Sources told Guardian Me­dia that these busi­ness­men have com­mand­ed the hu­man traf­fick­ing trade of South Amer­i­can women for sev­er­al years.

The list al­so un­cov­ered sev­er­al un­der­world fig­ures en­gaged in oth­er types of il­lic­it and vi­o­lent ac­tiv­i­ties who are mas­querad­ing as busi­ness­men.

On Ju­ly 25, Vaugh­an “Sand­man” Mieres was shot dead at his Las Cuevas home along with his wife, Ali­ka De­here and two of his hench­man—one iden­ti­fied as Nigel “Blood” Oc­tim, while the oth­er is yet to be iden­ti­fied.

Mieres, known for con­trol­ling a swathe of the North Coast for many years, was de­scribed as the “leader of the Mara­cas Bay gang that is in­volved in arms, the drug trade and sev­er­al mur­ders,” over the years.

The fright­en­ing re­al­i­ty of how or­gan­ised the drug trade has be­come is re­vealed through the in­tel­li­gence re­port, which links a busi­ness­man who owns a con­tract­ing com­pa­ny. The re­port gave de­tailed in­for­ma­tion about his drug-run­ning op­er­a­tion aid­ed and abet­ted by oth­er ma­jor play­ers. They said he runs an elab­o­rate drug dis­tri­b­u­tion ring known as “North-South run­ners.”

A ma­jor part of the op­er­a­tion “in­volves deep-wa­ter div­ing and un­der­wa­ter drug ship­ments re­ferred to as ‘par­a­sites’, where il­lic­it drugs are se­cured to the un­der­bel­ly of cer­tain ves­sels com­ing in­to Trinidad wa­ters,” the re­port stat­ed. Sev­er­al gang mem­bers and law en­force­ment of­fi­cers are on his pay­roll.

The re­port al­so named ten re­put­ed gang lead­ers, most of whom were al­ready men­tioned in the ex­clu­sive Spe­cial Branch re­port ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia a few weeks ago. Most of these gang lead­ers were iden­ti­fied as the ben­e­fi­cia­ries of close to six mil­lion dol­lars in State con­tracts through their com­pa­nies, de­spite an as­sur­ance giv­en by the Gov­ern­ment to stamp out this prac­tice.

The re­port stat­ed that most of these gang lead­ers op­er­ate reg­is­tered com­pa­nies and are con­nect­ed to ei­ther the Ras­ta City or Mus­lim gangs in the Port-of-Spain and West­ern ar­eas.

Two re­put­ed gang lead­ers with the ini­tials CL and BW were named in the re­port.

The un­der­world fig­ures and what they do

• A re­put­ed gang leader who al­so made the list is re­port­ed­ly con­nect­ed to the man who runs the “North-South run­ners.” The re­port stat­ed, he is “an as­sas­sin linked to sev­er­al promi­nent busi­ness­men op­er­at­ing from south Trinidad.”

• An­oth­er gang leader, whom they said owns a car rental and gro­cery busi­ness and is the sup­pli­er of “arms and drugs to var­i­ous or­gan­ised crime groups in south Trinidad,” is al­so linked to the “North-South run­ners.”

• A busi­ness­man al­so on the watch list is be­lieved to be in­volved in “ex­tor­tion, rack­e­teer­ing in con­struc­tion com­pa­nies and us­es gang mem­bers loy­al to an in­car­cer­at­ed gang leader.”

• The re­port al­so laid bare the ac­tiv­i­ties of an­oth­er busi­ness­man who owns a car busi­ness and is be­lieved to be “in­volved in the il­le­gal nar­cotics and arms trade as well as lar­ce­ny of ve­hi­cles and is the as­so­ciate of a well-known Mus­lim gang mem­ber.”

• A busi­ness­woman, whom law en­force­ment says is in­volved in or­gan­ised crime and owns a car busi­ness, was al­so named in the re­port.

• The re­port al­so named an­oth­er well-known busi­ness­man who owns stores and hard­ware. They be­lieve he is “in­volved in the il­le­gal im­por­ta­tion and har­bour­ing of Guyanese na­tion­als.”

• A busi­ness­man who owns a com­pa­ny was al­so iden­ti­fied in the re­port as be­ing in­volved in “mon­ey laun­der­ing and il­le­gal quar­ry­ing.”

• Three oth­er busi­ness­men have been iden­ti­fied in the re­port as be­ing “in­volved in or­gan­ised crime, traf­fick­ing of arms and am­mu­ni­tion and rack­e­teer­ing.” They are al­so sus­pect­ed to be in­volved in the lar­ce­ny of mo­tor ve­hi­cles and car parts.

• The own­er of a hard­ware who is al­so a gang leader is “in­volved in il­le­gal traf­fick­ing of drugs and guns from St Vin­cent and Venezuela and has close ties with per­sons in the un­der­world in To­ba­go.”

• One gang leader who is con­nect­ed to a promi­nent busi­ness­man and owns his own busi­ness is de­scribed as the leader of a fac­tion of the Mus­lim gang and is cur­rent­ly in jail on mur­der charges. The re­port states that he fa­cil­i­tates the crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties of a busi­ness­man and re­ceives con­tracts from three promi­nent com­pa­nies iden­ti­fied in the re­port.

Con­tact­ed last week on this mat­ter, a se­nior of­fi­cial said they could not make any com­ment on the re­port. Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith could not be reached for com­ment.