Au­thor­i­ties are fac­ing an up­hill bat­tle in ef­forts to crack down on il­le­gal quar­ry­ing, a mul­ti-bil­lion un­der­ground in­dus­try, which one em­ploy­ee on the front lines of the bat­tle against the ac­tiv­i­ty de­scribed as “a very dan­ger­ous and treach­er­ous game.”

The em­ploy­ee, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied out of con­cern for his safe­ty, said: “Peo­ple get killed and will be killed. Big monies are be­ing of­fered and ac­cept­ed. We are not get­ting the help from oth­er state agen­cies and there seem to be clear cut rea­sons as to why there is no in­ter­ven­tion.”

To fur­ther com­pli­cate mat­ters, there isn’t enough man­pow­er to mon­i­tor the sec­tor, he said. There are more than 100 quar­ry­ing sites across T&T but just 30 of them are cur­rent­ly be­ing vis­it­ed and mon­i­tored by of­fi­cials from the Min­istry’s of En­er­gy and Agri­cul­ture and State Lands per­son­nel.

The most re­cent ef­fort at en­force­ment took place on Jan­u­ary 14 at an il­le­gal mine in Matu­ra lo­cat­ed a stone’s throw away from the Matu­ra Po­lice Sta­tion in an area des­ig­nat­ed as a pro­tect­ed site where tur­tles nest.

It is be­lieved that op­er­a­tions have been tak­ing place there for sev­er­al years but to date, no one has been held ac­count­able, ar­rest­ed or pros­e­cut­ed.

Oth­er il­le­gal quar­ries have been found at Ve­ga de Oropouche, Five Acres, off San­gre Grande, Va­len­cia, To­co and Waller­field.

On Jan­u­ary 9, a team led by act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands Emeris Gar­raway-How­ell and ac­com­pa­nied by po­lice of­fi­cers from the North­ern In­ter-Agency Task Force Cen­tral Area went to two il­le­gal sites at Ve­ga de Oropouche.

At one lo­ca­tion they found an ex­ca­va­tor, and on the oth­er, there were four ex­ca­va­tors and oth­er equip­ment and ma­chines.

Po­lice and army per­son­nel as­signed to guard the equip­ment un­til they could be re­moved and im­pound­ed at Camp Cu­mu­to, aban­doned both sites af­ter sev­er­al hours of stand­ing guard.

“Lis­ten, the cor­rup­tion digs very deep and we be­lieve that some­thing hap­pens.

“Some­one may have called or gone to the site lat­er that evening or night be­cause af­ter we re­alised that the po­lice and sol­diers left, one of the ex­ca­va­tors was moved from the site and we lat­er found it hid­den on an­oth­er track close to an aban­doned house,” the source said.

“All our hard work was in vain and this whole thing has gone hel­ter-skel­ter. We need now to speak di­rect­ly to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.”

Gar­raway-How­ell, who took up the act­ing ap­point­ment last April, told Guardian Me­dia in an ear­li­er in­ter­view that “the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty with re­gard to the con­ven­tion and even the stop­ping of il­le­gal quar­ry­ing falls un­der the re­mit of the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands.”

How­ev­er, Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries Clarence Ramb­harat said il­le­gal quar­ry­ing falls un­der the En­er­gy Min­istry and the role of the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands is to as­sist in iden­ti­fy­ing the sta­tus and own­er­ship of the lands.

The min­is­ter said State Lands per­son­nel are not re­quired to co­or­di­nate with the po­lice and army to move in on il­le­gal quar­ries,

“That is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Quar­ries Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry Of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries. The State Lands Di­vi­sion does not have that ex­per­tise,” Ramb­harat said.

He said he is re­view­ing what tran­spired at Ve­ga de Oropouche on Jan­u­ary 9 “to de­ter­mine the facts.”

Fines and prison for il­le­gal quar­ry­ing

The penal­ty for il­le­gal quar­ry­ing is a fine of $700,000 and up to sev­en years in prison.

Any per­son who ex­plores for mines, process­es, im­ports or ex­ports any min­er­al with­out a li­cense is­sued by the En­er­gy Min­istry, up­on first con­vic­tion will face a fine of $500,000 and im­pris­on­ment for five years. For any sub­se­quent con­vic­tion, the fine is $700,000 and im­pris­on­ment for sev­en years.

Any­one who know­ing­ly pur­chas­es ag­gre­gate from un­li­censed min­ing op­er­a­tors or trades in such min­er­al can al­so be ar­rest­ed by po­lice and can face a $500,000 fine and five years im­pris­on­ment.

These penal­ties are out­lined in the amend­ed Min­er­als Act, Chap­ter 61:03 and the State Lands Act, Chap­ter 57:01.

Un­der the State Lands Act, where the ma­te­r­i­al dug, won, or re­moved is as­phalt, up­on a first con­vic­tion the penal­ty is a $300,000 fine and three years im­pris­on­ment. For sub­se­quent con­vic­tions, the fine in­creas­es to $500,000 and five years im­pris­on­ment.

Where ma­te­r­i­al oth­er than as­phalt is dug, won, or re­moved, up­on first con­vic­tion per­sons can face a $120,000 fine and one-year im­pris­on­ment.

For sub­se­quent con­vic­tions, there is a $300,000 fine and three years im­pris­on­ment.