JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figueira be­lieves the 18 mur­ders re­port­ed last week are be­cause the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency is leav­ing a void in the lead­er­ship of gangs.

Figueira says the crim­i­nal un­der­lings are now try­ing to take con­trol of the ground, as their lead­ers are in­car­cer­at­ed, thus cre­at­ing hav­oc in some ar­eas across the coun­try.

Be­tween last Sun­day and yes­ter­day, there were 18 re­port­ed mur­ders, in­clud­ing the dis­cov­ery of miss­ing busi­ness­man Im­raz Ali on Sat­ur­day and the bul­let-rid­dled body of an uniden­ti­fied man yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Figueira said the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties need to in­fil­trate the crim­i­nal un­der­world, specif­i­cal­ly those con­nect­ed to the il­le­gal mi­grants.

“From amongst the il­lic­it mi­grants in Cunu­pia to Bar­rack­pore, with the lead­er­ship there in­tact who an­swers to the Colom­bian dons, they are look­ing to make a resur­gence,” he said.

“We are not pick­ing up the peo­ple who nes­tled in with the il­lic­it mi­grants. The Span­ish speak­ers do not in­form on each oth­er, and the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus has failed mis­er­ably to pen­e­trate them. Be­cause the on­ly way to pen­e­trate them is that we have to work close­ly with Venezue­lan na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus, be­cause they know them.”

Figueira added that Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, rather than at­tend­ing a con­fer­ence in the US, should make his way be­tween Bo­ga­ta and Cara­cas, ac­quir­ing in­tel­li­gence from both coun­tries on the crim­i­nals here or who are their af­fil­i­ates.

Ear­li­er this month, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the pres­ence of the US in the South­ern Caribbean has had a pos­i­tive im­pact on crime in the coun­try. At the time, she was com­ment­ing af­ter the fourth US air strike on ves­sels said to be car­ry­ing drug car­go. Since the at­tacks be­gan in Sep­tem­ber, 21 al­leged nar­co­traf­fick­ers have been killed by US forces.

Asked about this, Figueira said T&T is no longer the ma­jor trans­ship­ment point for co­caine, since there is a dwin­dling mar­ket in the US for co­caine. He added that there has been a re­duc­tion in co­caine seized over the years, not­ing that the ma­jor drug is once again mar­i­jua­na.

While he be­lieves the fight for mar­i­jua­na turf has trig­gered the in­crease in killings, for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith said spikes, such as last week’s, usu­al­ly fol­low ma­jor drug seizures.

On Sep­tem­ber 30, po­lice seized co­caine and Colom­bian mar­i­jua­na val­ued at more than $292 mil­lion. Po­lice said the dis­cov­ery was made at a con­cealed stash site, fol­low­ing overnight sur­veil­lance of a re­mote area in Pa­lo Seco.

Ac­cord­ing to of­fi­cial fig­ures, the search found 1,177.4 kilo­grammes of Colom­bian mar­i­jua­na pack­aged in 41 cro­cus bags, with an es­ti­mat­ed val­ue of $129,216,117.80. Of­fi­cers al­so found 117.14 kilo­grammes of co­caine in five cro­cus bags, val­ued at $163,283,788.80.

Grif­fith, too, be­lieves the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties need to be bet­ter at gath­er­ing in­tel­li­gence, es­pe­cial­ly on the rea­son for this spike.

“Right now, hope­ful­ly, the in­tel­li­gence agen­cies will know what has caused the spike over the last few days. It could be an es­ca­la­tion in gang war­fare. It could be lieu­tenants who have now tak­en over the gangs be­cause the lead­ers of the gangs have now been in­car­cer­at­ed. So, un­less it is in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven, law en­force­ment op­er­a­tions, you’ll be shoot­ing in the dark, lit­er­al­ly.”

He added that what is re­quired is for Per­sad-Bisses­sar, as chair of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, to call an emer­gency meet­ing with the dif­fer­ent arms of the in­tel­li­gence agen­cies, not just law en­force­ment. He said it can­not be based on spec­u­la­tion, as that will hin­der how re­sources are de­ployed. One of these re­sources, he said, is the De­fence Force.

Al­though the De­fence Force had a ma­jor shake-up last week with Chief of De­fence Staff Air Vice-Mar­shall Dar­ryl Daniel be­ing re­placed overnight by Cap­tain Don Po­lo, Grif­fith says this will not in­ter­rupt the abil­i­ty of the De­fence Force to be used, par­tic­u­lar­ly now in a State of Emer­gency.

“It has noth­ing to do with the change of the lead­er­ship of the De­fence Force. It has to do with the change in the phi­los­o­phy and the mind­set of the state. Be­cause in the last 10 years, the State was ig­no­rant in un­der­stand­ing how to de­ploy the De­fence Force,” Grif­fith said.

“The Chief of De­fence Staff is not go­ing to de­ploy troops to sup­port the po­lice un­less it gets the au­tho­ri­sa­tion from the heads of state, that be­ing the Prime Min­is­ter, the chair of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, and the line Min­is­ter of De­fence and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty.”

He added that there needs to be po­lit­i­cal will to prop­er­ly utilise the De­fence Force and oth­er in­tel­li­gence-based units to tack­le crime.

“We are at war with an en­e­my that we can­not see at times, which is the gang war­fare ac­tiv­i­ty. Peo­ple who are in­volved in rape, kid­nap­ping, mur­der, ex­tor­tion, home in­va­sion. The De­fence Force has 5,000 per­sons out there. Now is the time we can utilise them. The change of the lead­er­ship might very well be the cat­a­lyst to put an in­jec­tion in­to mak­ing sure that the De­fence Force can op­er­ate at op­ti­mum lev­el, to be able to pro­vide part of their role and func­tion, which is an aid to civ­il pow­er.”

Calls and mes­sages to Gue­var­ro went unan­swered yes­ter­day.