Three men have been for­mal­ly charged un­der the An­ti-Gang Leg­is­la­tion fol­low­ing ad­vice from the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, Roger Gas­pard, to­day.

The ac­cused are An­cil Shawn Vil­lafana, aka ‘Chemist’ and ‘Pre­si’ Kevon Isa­iah Franklyn, aka ‘Fat Joe’, all of Beetham Gar­dens, Port of Spain are charged for be­ing lead­ers of a gang con­trary to sec­tion 6(1) (a) of the Act No.1 of 2018.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, An­cil Shawn Vil­lafana, aka ‘Chemist’ and ‘Pre­si’, Kevon Isa­iah Franklyn, aka ‘Fat Joe’ and Keedel Fabi­an Mon­trose, aka ‘Feedel’, have been charged for coun­selling a gang con­trary to sec­tion 9(d) of the Act.

The charges were laid by Ag. In­sp. Ram­dass of the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit.

A state­ment by the Po­lice Ser­vice said: "Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith wish­es to note that these ar­rests took sev­er­al months of in­tense in­ves­ti­ga­tions. He says the An­ti-Gang Leg­is­la­tion is a tech­ni­cal but ef­fec­tive law which can as­sist law en­force­ment agen­cies and more specif­i­cal­ly, the Po­lice in re­duc­ing gang ac­tiv­i­ty. Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith states “with this bill along with oth­er op­er­a­tions and in­tel­li­gence tools, we will be able to dis­rupt gang-ac­tiv­i­ty which has been a cat­a­lyst for homi­cides.”

It added that the Com­mis­sion­er states “whilst not in re­la­tion to this case, I am tak­ing a per­son­al in­ter­est in per­sons who re­fer to them­selves as ‘Lead­ers’, and will use this an­ti-gang leg­is­la­tion to ap­pre­hend and lead them to their cells where they will lose their per­ceived ranks.”

The Com­mis­sion­er is now ask­ing the pub­lic for in­for­ma­tion on the where­abouts of Aki­do Williams aka ‘Sun­day’ of Basilon Street, Port-of-Spain who is a per­son of in­ter­est in on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

The three sus­pects are due to ap­pear at the Port of Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court on Tues­day.