Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Cor­rup­tion at the hands of state of­fi­cials and law en­force­ment of­fi­cers is a sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor in the fa­cil­i­ta­tion of hu­man traf­fick­ing be­tween Venezuela and Trinidad and To­ba­go, ac­cord­ing to some of the find­ings of a 2019 CARI­COM Hu­man Traf­fick­ing study.

Ac­cord­ing to in­ves­ti­ga­tions car­ried out in the Venezue­lan town of Tu­cu­pi­ta, which in­clud­ed in­ter­views with hu­man traf­fick­ers, some of the gangs in the re­gion are head­ed and op­er­at­ed by law-en­force­ment of­fi­cers from Trinidad & To­ba­go.

The re­search car­ried out by re­searcher Dr C Jus­tine Pierre, and as­sist­ed by Nay­ro­bis Ro­driguez, gath­ered in­for­ma­tion from traf­fick­ers, smug­glers, vic­tims, law en­force­ment of­fi­cers, as well as from an­ti-hu­man traf­fick­ing or­ga­ni­za­tions in more than 32 coun­tries.

One Venezue­lan traf­fick­er in­di­cat­ed that through his con­nec­tion with el­e­ments in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, he has been as­sured of pro­tec­tion by of­fi­cers who ad­vise him where to en­ter the coun­try.

He al­so claimed that the of­fi­cers pro­vide se­cu­ri­ty for the safe-hous­es where the women are kept be­fore they are car­ried across Trinidad & To­ba­go in trucks, cars, maxi-taxis, and vans.

An­oth­er traf­fick­er con­firmed the claims, say­ing that he had been work­ing with a po­lice of­fi­cer from Trinidad and To­ba­go who pays him to pro­vide women for his T&T-based or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Ad­mit­ting that he was part of a gang that spe­cialised in kid­nap­ping Venezue­lans and car­ry­ing them to T&T, he said the of­fi­cer, a con­sta­ble, is a mem­ber of an or­gan­ised South Amer­i­can crime net­work.

He said they worked to­geth­er to bring across the women, where they were forced to work, in many in­stances, as sex slaves and pros­ti­tutes.

To sup­port his claims, he showed the re­search team the of­fi­cer’s cell phone num­ber.

He al­so pro­vid­ed a se­ries of cor­re­spon­dence be­tween the two of them, demon­strat­ing that dis­cus­sions were about hu­man traf­fick­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.

When ap­proached by the re­search team, the ac­cused of­fi­cer de­nied the al­le­ga­tions, say­ing he has nev­er been a mem­ber of a gang.

Asked why a known-traf­fick­er would have his phone num­ber, the con­sta­ble stat­ed he did not know why, and that hav­ing some­one’s phone num­ber in one’s pos­ses­sion does not con­sti­tute a crime.

In an­oth­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion, dis­cus­sions be­tween re­searchers and mil­i­tary agents re­vealed that the or­ga­nized-crime gang was led by a man nick­named ‘El Monky,’ who, at the time of his ar­rest, was found in pos­ses­sion of the tele­phone num­ber of a Trinida­di­an po­lice of­fi­cer.

Guardian Me­dia sent the fol­low­ing ques­tions to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s Com­mu­ni­ca­tion De­part­ment on Thurs­day and have not yet re­ceived re­spons­es:

1) Was the TTPS aware of the find­ings of the study?

2) Are there ac­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tions sur­round­ing the pos­si­ble in­volve­ment of TTPS of­fi­cers in hu­man traf­fick­ing?

3) Have any TTPS of­fi­cers been ar­rest­ed for hu­man traf­fick­ing in the last five years or so?

4) Does the TTPS have any oth­er com­ment on the is­sue?