Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Aluko Ato Warn­er, one of the sons of To­ba­go con­struc­tion mag­nate Al­lan Warn­er, is among eight peo­ple charged in con­nec­tion with an il­le­gal quar­ry­ing op­er­a­tion in Waller­field. Warn­er, sources con­firmed, was ar­rest­ed and charged fol­low­ing a raid at a Moo­nan Road quar­ry pro­cess­ing site on Thurs­day.

Po­lice of­fi­cers fol­low­ing up on in­tel­li­gence vis­it­ed the Moo­nan Road, Agua San­ta, Waller­field, site on Thurs­day. 

The of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly dis­cov­ered a large-scale min­er­al pro­cess­ing plant op­er­at­ing with­out a li­cence.

On Fri­day, Warn­er and sev­en oth­er men were charged with pro­cess­ing min­er­als with­out a li­cence un­der Sec­tion 45 (1) of the Min­er­als Act, Chap­ter 61.03. They were grant­ed $75,000 bail with a sure­ty each by Jus­tice of the Peace Abrahim Ali. They are ex­pect­ed to re­turn to the Ari­ma Court on June 5.

Yes­ter­day, Warn­er, CEO of Warn­er Con­struc­tion and San­i­ta­tion Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (WC­SL), con­firmed that his son Aluko was charged. He, how­ev­er, de­clined to com­ment fur­ther, not­ing that the mat­ter was be­ing dealt with by their le­gal team.

The po­lice raid on Thurs­day came af­ter ex­ten­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tions by Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­tiga­tive Desk.

The TTPS, in a re­lease last night, said "a mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar pro­cess­ing op­er­a­tion was shut down" fol­low­ing the joint in­tel­li­gence-led ex­er­cise con­duct­ed by the Mul­ti-Agency Task Force (MATF) as­sist­ed by the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch, the North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Task Force, and Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tors, last Thurs­day. 

The ex­er­cise, the re­lease stat­ed, "fol­lowed a di­rec­tive from Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice ex­ec­u­tive in­struct­ing the MATF to con­duct an all-gov­ern­ment mul­ti­level in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to il­le­gal min­ing and il­le­gal pro­cess­ing of min­er­als."

The ex­er­cise was spear­head­ed by ACP Curt Si­mon and co­or­di­nat­ed by Snr Supt Singh of the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tion Bu­reau and ASP Haynes of the MATF.

The re­lease said that based on in­for­ma­tion, "of­fi­cers un­earthed a large-scale and high­ly mod­ernised min­er­als pro­cess­ing plant. They ob­served per­sons at the plant’s lo­ca­tion on Moo­nan Road, Waller­field, op­er­at­ing a wash plant ma­chine and heavy equip­ment. They were al­so en­gaged in oth­er gen­er­al site work. A search war­rant was ex­e­cut­ed at the site where sev­er­al doc­u­ments were seized."

Warn­er of Wood­brook, Robert Wil­son of Todds Road, Reuben Mapran­gala of Champs Fleurs, Ricky Joseph of New Grant, Corey Charles of Diego Mar­tin, De­on George of Laven­tille, Shas­tri Ma­hadeo of Ch­agua­nas, and Ki­mal Williams of Sea Lots, were joint­ly charged by Cpl Now­butt on Fri­day.

Up­on in­quiries, two days be­fore the raid, the Guardian Me­dia In­ves­tiga­tive Desk was told by the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty that a re­port about il­le­gal quar­ry­ing in Waller­field was passed to the TTPS in Feb­ru­ary.

The desk has been in­ves­ti­gat­ing il­le­gal quar­ry­ing in Waller­field since Feb­ru­ary, af­ter Moo­nan Road res­i­dents com­plained about be­ing im­pris­oned in their own homes. Res­i­dents said dust from the op­er­a­tion was caus­ing health prob­lems for the com­mu­ni­ty’s young and old and was de­stroy­ing Moo­nan Road. Res­i­dents said when they raised con­cerns, they were threat­ened with vi­o­lence by one of the op­er­a­tors of a quar­ry in the area—a well-known busi­ness­man from east Trinidad. Res­i­dents said they felt help­less.

The In­ves­tiga­tive Desk dis­cov­ered that there were, at least, three il­le­gal quar­ry­ing op­er­a­tions in the area. Af­ter Thurs­day’s po­lice raid, where the pro­cess­ing plant was shut down, two quar­ries in Waller­field were still op­er­a­tional. There are, how­ev­er, no li­cenced quar­ries in that area.

In a March 2022 po­lice me­dia brief­ing, ASP Murchi­son Fitz­worme of the East­ern Di­vi­sion re­port­ed that the il­le­gal quar­ry­ing ac­tiv­i­ties at­tract­ed crim­i­nals from dif­fer­ent parts of the is­land to parts of the North­ern and East­ern Di­vi­sions. 

In ear­ly 2023, then head of the North­ern Di­vi­sion, Snr Supt Ker­win Fran­cis, at a po­lice me­dia brief­ing, re­port­ed that of­fi­cials from cer­tain state agen­cies were in­volved in the prac­tice ei­ther will­ing­ly or forcibly co­erced by crim­i­nals.

In an­oth­er me­dia brief­ing lat­er that year, ASP Leon Haynes of the Mul­ti-Agency Task Force, the unit tasked with dis­man­tling il­le­gal quar­ry­ing op­er­a­tions, said he was aware of the al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion from some state agen­cies.

The Mul­ti-Agency Task Force was formed in 2018 and has seized 13 trucks, eight ex­ca­va­tors, and a bull­doz­er and ar­rest­ed 11 peo­ple up to 2023.

In 2014, fines for il­le­gal quar­ry­ing were raised from $200,000 for a first con­vic­tion to $500,000 and five years’ im­pris­on­ment.