Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has cred­it­ed re­cent lead­er­ship changes with­in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s To­ba­go Di­vi­sion for Mon­day’s his­toric $42 mil­lion nar­cotics haul at Pi­geon Point and the re­cent de­cline in se­ri­ous crimes.

In fact, Au­gus­tine said this is the lev­el of per­for­mance he has been ad­vo­cat­ing for.

“This is the biggest step in restor­ing con­fi­dence in the pub­lic,” he said yes­ter­day, com­mend­ing the di­vi­sion for ex­e­cut­ing To­ba­go’s largest-ever drug and weapons seizure.

“This kind of find fur­ther jus­ti­fies the THA’s spend and sup­port for the TTPS, the De­fence Force, and all of the se­cu­ri­ty ma­chin­ery on the is­land... It shows how the TTPS, with re­fo­cused lead­er­ship on the is­land, is mak­ing a dent in the fight against crime.”

Au­gus­tine spoke of sub­stan­tial be­hind-the-scenes ef­forts to strength­en To­ba­go’s se­cu­ri­ty.

“A lot is hap­pen­ing on the is­land be­hind closed doors se­cu­ri­ty-wise, but To­bag­o­ni­ans can be cer­tain that the THA has been qui­et­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly pump­ing as many re­sources as pos­si­ble in­to the is­land’s se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus.”

He specif­i­cal­ly con­grat­u­lat­ed re­cent­ly ap­point­ed ACP Os­wain Subero, Snr Supt Earl Elie and the of­fi­cers in­volved in the op­er­a­tion.

Of­fi­cers seized $42 mil­lion worth of nar­cotics, firearms and am­mu­ni­tion dur­ing a ma­jor op­er­a­tion at Pi­geon Point Beach just af­ter 7.30 pm on Mon­day.

Sources told Guardian Me­dia the to­tal street worth of the mar­i­jua­na was $36,174,030.50 and $6,040,320 for three 13-kg pack­ages of co­caine.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Elie said of­fi­cers seized 231 kilo­grams of mar­i­jua­na and 13 kilo­grams of co­caine, along with three firearms, in­clud­ing a ma­chine gun, two Glock pis­tols and 167 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion.

“What we are here wit­ness­ing to­day is a re­sult of painstak­ing in­quiries and in­ves­ti­ga­tions and al­so painstak­ing sur­veil­lance work, which was done by mem­bers of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion­al Task Force dur­ing the hours of yes­ter­day, day­light in­to last night. The re­sult of that op­er­a­tion would be what you are see­ing here, which could be dubbed one of the largest nar­cotics hauls in the his­to­ry of To­ba­go,” Elie said.

Two men, a 30-year-old from Buc­coo and a 48-year-old from Mara­bel­la, Trinidad, were ar­rest­ed on a pirogue dur­ing the op­er­a­tion at Pi­geon Point. The un­reg­is­tered boat was im­pound­ed and both men were ar­rest­ed. Po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.

How­ev­er, for Elie, this is not an event to re­joice over.

“This is not some­thing to boast about. There’s no boast­ing in find­ing this quan­ti­ty of nar­cotics in your coun­try. But it has re­vealed some­thing else and con­firmed for us what we have sus­pect­ed for a long time, un­for­tu­nate­ly. The sat­is­fac­tion is know­ing that we would have ar­rest­ed two per­pe­tra­tors. That’s two per­sons less to com­mit this type of of­fence in the near fu­ture.”

He said in­ves­ti­ga­tions sug­gest the drugs and weapons were not meant for To­ba­go but were en route to an­oth­er Caribbean is­land.

Both sus­pects had pre­vi­ous­ly served three-year prison sen­tences for sim­i­lar crimes. How­ev­er, po­lice could not con­firm if they are linked to any or­gan­ised crime groups or lo­cal gangs.

Elie couldn’t say where the drugs orig­i­nat­ed from but con­firmed the ship­ment passed through Trinidad.

“What that tells us is some­thing we would have al­ways sus­pect­ed, To­ba­go to be a trans-ship­ment route for nar­cotics. This, for me, is the proof. Again, I’m say­ing this is the largest find we have had in To­ba­go, and based on the in­tel­li­gence, it sug­gests that this ship­ment was not des­tined for To­ba­go. It would have passed through Trinidad, which would have been the orig­i­nal point, be­cause this type of prod­uct is not made in Trinidad. It would have left Trinidad en route to an­oth­er Caribbean des­ti­na­tion.”

Elie not­ed that this case shows a grow­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go crim­i­nals, not on­ly in drug traf­fick­ing but in oth­er crimes.

The sus­pects are ex­pect­ed to face three charges - pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na for traf­fick­ing, pos­ses­sion of co­caine for traf­fick­ing, and firearm traf­fick­ing.

The po­lice op­er­a­tion was led by ACP Subero and Snr Supt Elie, along with of­fi­cers from the T&T De­fence Force.

Elie thanked his of­fi­cers, the pub­lic and De­fence Force mem­bers for as­sist­ing with the four-day in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce To­ba­go Di­vi­sion chair­man Cur­tis Williams ap­plaud­ed the of­fi­cers.

“We, the mem­bers of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the TT Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, wel­come the work done by the TTPS. We en­cour­age them to con­tin­ue do­ing a good job for the is­land of To­ba­go.”

To­ba­go Cham­ber chair­man Mar­tin George al­so ap­plaud­ed the di­vi­sion for a job well done but was con­cerned this might on­ly be the “tip of the ice­berg.”

“We en­cour­age them to keep up the fight… We are all hands on deck in terms of the fight against crime in To­ba­go. We want to en­sure we don’t see a bloody year as we did in 2024,” George said.

He added, “It would be naive to be sur­prised at the quan­ti­ty be­cause this ac­tu­al­ly may be the tip of the ice­berg. Once you see the lev­el of crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty oc­cur­ring in To­ba­go over the past few months, it’s clear some of it has to be fu­elled by il­le­gal drugs and guns.”