The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty’s Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) has joined forces with glob­al law en­force­ment agen­cies to ad­dress the is­sue of hu­man traf­fick­ing and mi­grant smug­gling, as part of In­ter­pol’s his­toric Op­er­a­tion Lib­ert­er­ra II.

In a state­ment to­day, the min­istry said the op­er­a­tion spanned 116 coun­tries and was con­duct­ed from Sep­tem­ber 29 to Oc­to­ber 5 2024. Dur­ing this time 3,222 po­ten­tial vic­tims of traf­fick­ing (VoTs) were res­cued and 17,793 ir­reg­u­lar mi­grants were iden­ti­fied world­wide.

In ad­di­tion to this, the re­lease al­so said that "Trinidad and To­ba­go achieved In­ter­pol’s Lev­el 1 des­ig­na­tion, demon­strat­ing its ca­pa­bil­i­ty to res­cue vic­tims and suc­cess­ful­ly charge sus­pects in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, while al­so par­tic­i­pat­ing at Lev­el 2, bor­der mon­i­tor­ing at key en­try points."

Dur­ing Op­er­a­tion Lib­ert­er­ra II, the CTU, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion, strength­ened its bor­der mon­i­tor­ing at the In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. Screen­ing ef­forts cov­ered 47 in­com­ing flights and over 5,300 pas­sen­gers, de­tect­ing hu­man traf­fick­ing and smug­gling risks, iden­ti­fy­ing fraud­u­lent ac­tiv­i­ties and fo­cus­ing on the pro­tec­tion of un­ac­com­pa­nied and sep­a­rat­ed chil­dren.

Sev­er­al agen­cies were in­volved in the op­er­a­tions. They in­clude:

-Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP)

-In­ter­pol Bu­reau

-Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion

-Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU), TTPS

-Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB), TTPS

-Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Task Force (CDTF), TTPS

-As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, South

-Cy­ber-Crime and So­cial Me­dia Unit (CSMU), TTPS

-Child Pro­tec­tion Unit (CPU), TTPS

-Air Sup­port Unit, TTPS

-Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (CSI), TTPS

-Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit (VW­SU), TTPS

-Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit of Trinidad and To­ba­go (FI­UTT)

-Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (CATT)

-In­ter­na­tion­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Mi­gra­tion (IOM)

The state­ment high­light­ed that T&T’s per­for­mance dur­ing the op­er­a­tion earned recog­ni­tion twice from In­ter­pol, po­si­tion­ing the na­tion as a leader in com­bat­ing hu­man traf­fick­ing. In to­tal, Op­er­a­tion Lib­ert­er­ra II con­duct­ed near­ly 8 mil­lion checks against In­ter­pol’s data­bas­es glob­al­ly, and the co­or­di­nat­ed ef­forts of par­tic­i­pat­ing coun­tries led to 2,517 ar­rests re­lat­ed to hu­man traf­fick­ing and smug­gling.

In­ter­pol’s Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of Po­lice Ser­vices, Stephen Ka­vanagh, em­pha­sized the suc­cess of the op­er­a­tion, stat­ing, “Be­yond pro­vid­ing a snap­shot of glob­al traf­fick­ing and mi­gra­tion trends, the op­er­a­tion served as a vi­tal ca­pac­i­ty build­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty for coun­tries, fos­ter­ing re­la­tion­ships be­tween spe­cial­ized units, and en­hanc­ing cross-agency col­lab­o­ra­tion.”

The min­istry re­it­er­at­ed that through the CTO they are com­mit­ted to pro­tect­ing VoTs and bring per­pe­tra­tors to jus­tice.

The min­istry al­so added that, "This suc­cess­ful op­er­a­tion rep­re­sents an­oth­er step to­ward im­prov­ing our Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons (TiPs) rank­ing in 2025, un­der­scor­ing the im­pact of col­lab­o­ra­tive ac­tion and rig­or­ous en­force­ment in the fight against hu­man traf­fick­ing."