An­na-Lisa Paul

Even as the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) con­tin­ues to ve­he­ment­ly de­ny that any mem­ber of its par­ty has ever been in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher has launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter now swirling around in the pub­lic do­main.

A re­lease from the TTPS yes­ter­day said, “Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Er­la Christo­pher, has or­dered an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­le­ga­tions of hu­man traf­fick­ing cur­rent­ly in the pub­lic do­main. Fol­low­ing a meet­ing with the Di­rec­tor of the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit, Com­mis­sion­er Christo­pher ap­point­ed a spe­cial team of of­fi­cers to in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter.”

The re­lease quot­ed Hare­wood-Christo­pher as say­ing, “These al­le­ga­tions of hu­man traf­fick­ing are se­ri­ous, and will not be tak­en light­ly.”

The TTPS said the CoP has giv­en the as­sur­ance that the mat­ter will be vig­or­ous­ly pur­sued and thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

The re­lease did not say ex­act­ly who will be in­ves­ti­gat­ed, giv­en the cur­rent po­lit­i­cal tit-for-tat sur­round­ing the is­sue in and out of the Par­lia­ment.

The is­sue has cre­at­ed a firestorm af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said a 2020 US De­part­ment of State Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons re­port was, in fact, re­fer­ring to a mem­ber of the Op­po­si­tion when it re­port­ed on a se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial who was in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing.

The UNC has de­nied this claim, but for­mer UNC MPs Dr De­vant Ma­haraj and Dr Vas­ant Bharath have al­so claimed to have been aware of the is­sue while they were in the PP gov­ern­ment and that the par­ty’s lead­er­ship was al­so aware.

US Am­bas­sador Can­dace Bond has since clar­i­fied that “se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials,” as re­ferred to in the re­port, is meant to mean any­one who works for the Gov­ern­ment.

CoP Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s an­nounce­ment yes­ter­day al­so came as a doc­u­ment cir­cu­lat­ing on­line pur­port­ed to rep­re­sent a PTSC in­ves­ti­ga­tion fol­low­ing a TNT Mir­ror sto­ry in 2012 which al­leged a sex ring and es­cort ser­vice with­in the cor­po­ra­tion.

The com­mit­tee who con­duct­ed the re­port con­clud­ed there was no ev­i­dence un­earthed to sug­gest PTSC fa­cil­i­ties were em­ployed to fa­cil­i­tate any ac­tiv­i­ties out­side of its core busi­ness but not­ed the de­scrip­tion of the in­di­vid­ual in­volved re­port­ed by the news­pa­per fit that of one of its em­ploy­ees.

Yes­ter­day, a for­mer high-rank­ing PTSC of­fi­cial con­firmed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was car­ried out and a re­port com­piled in­to the al­le­ga­tions that sur­faced against an ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber back in 2012. How­ev­er, he said he could not speak to the au­then­tic­i­ty of a two-page doc­u­ment that was cir­cu­lat­ed on­line yes­ter­day.

Con­tact­ed on the is­sue, UNC pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Dr Kirk Meighoo said he was un­aware of the au­then­tic­i­ty of the PTSC re­port.

How­ev­er, he said it was “alarm­ing and dis­turb­ing” that the me­dia was now “fo­cus­ing on red her­rings be­ing thrown up by for­mer min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.”

On whether the al­le­ga­tions of any UNC mem­ber be­ing in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing held any truth, Meighoo said, “We are cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly not in­volved.”

How­ev­er, he ad­vised that at­ten­tion be paid to who the se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial is that was in­volved

Not­ing that since 2020 when the re­port was first pub­lished the UNC had raised it and noth­ing was done, he said, “Now, there is all this chas­ing of ghosts and witch­es.”

Mean­while, a for­mer Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty em­ploy­ee ad­vis­ing all those with knowl­edge of the hu­man traf­fick­ing ring and its op­er­a­tions to re­port the mat­ter to the TTPS, as there was no statute of lim­i­ta­tions.

“If it hap­pened nine or ten years ago it is still el­i­gi­ble, as there is no statute of lim­i­ta­tions pre­vent­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion from tak­ing place now.”

Ad­mit­ting the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic had forced hu­man traf­fick­ers to be­come more cre­ative and in­no­v­a­tive in how they ped­dle hu­man flesh, the of­fi­cial said with restau­rants, bars and spas hav­ing to close, traf­fick­ers switched up op­er­a­tions by rent­ing hous­es in res­i­den­tial up­scale com­mu­ni­ties to house pros­ti­tutes un­der the guise of of­fer­ing mas­sages and es­cort ser­vices.

The of­fi­cial said they were not sur­prised to hear politi­cians were al­leged­ly in­volved.

“Traf­fick­ing takes place at all lev­els of the so­ci­ety.”

A for­mer se­nior TTPS of­fi­cial al­so said while he was aware of the US re­port “the in­for­ma­tion would have been flow­ing with­in the pe­ri­od 2018 to 2019.”

Asked if the TTPS had con­duct­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­le­ga­tions of a hu­man/sex traf­fick­ing ring in­volv­ing po­lit­i­cal of­fi­cials, he said, “I don’t know if any in­ves­ti­ga­tion was done and they came up with ze­ro-ze­ro. I have no such knowl­edge of any such in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­ing done on any gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial as it re­lates to hu­man traf­fick­ing.”

He too agreed there was no statute of lim­i­ta­tions.

“The po­lice can launch an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to any in­for­ma­tion that comes to hand right now.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so con­tact­ed Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit Di­rec­tor, Dr Saman­tha Chaitram, yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, she said, “I will not be able to speak on the mat­ter.”