Hu­man traf­fick­ers have pro­vid­ed ev­i­dence link­ing lo­cal po­lice who play a crit­i­cal role in fa­cil­i­tat­ing the traf­fick­ing ring be­tween this coun­try and Venezuela. In one in­stance, a traf­fick­er has pro­vid­ed a se­ries of cor­re­spon­dence be­tween him­self and a cop in T&T.

Mean­while, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith told the Sun­day Guardian that they have a list with the names of of­fi­cers al­leged­ly in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing and they are be­ing mon­i­tored by the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) and the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU).

The lat­est in­for­ma­tion was con­tained in a CAR­I­FO­RUM re­port about hu­man traf­fick­ing in the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca, where Dr Justin Pierre, a hu­man traf­fick­ing re­searcher looks at the in­volve­ment of law en­force­ment in the trade. The re­search was com­mis­sioned with the as­sis­tance of Cari­com.

Dr Pierre sent out po­ten­tial ques­tion­naires to 342 sus­pect­ed hu­man traf­fick­ers in this re­gion. Analysing and putting the da­ta to­geth­er took ap­prox­i­mate­ly nine months and was com­plet­ed in late 2020.

Ac­cord­ing to the fi­nal re­port which was ob­tained by the Sun­day Guardian, at least 51 Venezue­lan hu­man traf­fick­ers re­spond­ed to the ques­tion­naire.

This was the rev­e­la­tion by some of the traf­fick­ers, ac­cord­ing to Dr Pierre's 11-page re­port: "Some of the gangs in the Tu­cu­pi­ta re­gion com­prise and, in fact, are head­ed and op­er­at­ed by law en­force­ment of­fi­cers in­clud­ing some from Trinidad and To­ba­go.

"One al­leged traf­fick­er in­di­cat­ed that through his con­nec­tion with el­e­ments in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, he has been as­sured of pro­tec­tion by some po­lice of­fi­cers who ad­vise him where to en­ter the coun­try.

"Those of­fi­cers al­so pro­vide pa­trol and se­cu­ri­ty for the safe hous­es where the women are kept be­fore be­ing dis­trib­uted across Trinidad and To­ba­go in trucks, cars, maxi-taxis, and vans."

Tu­cu­pi­ta, the cap­i­tal of the Delta Amacuro re­gion which lies just a few hours by boat from Trinidad's South­west­ern penin­su­la, was iden­ti­fied as a place where "hu­man traf­fick­ing is one of the fastest-grow­ing crimes."

The re­port in­di­cat­ed that a traf­fick­er from that area—re­ferred to as traf­fick­er Y—al­leged that a po­lice of­fi­cer from T&T—re­ferred to as con­sta­ble X—was a mem­ber of an or­gan­ised crime net­work in Venezuela with strong links in T&T. Traf­fick­er Y's gang spe­cialised in cap­tur­ing cit­i­zens in Venezuela and trans­port­ing them to Trinidad and oth­er coun­tries for forced labour and to work as pros­ti­tutes.

Traf­fick­er Y al­so claimed that the con­sta­ble had paid them to pro­cure women and young girls for his or­gan­i­sa­tion, which meant "hunt­ing them, lur­ing them with false promis­es of a bet­ter life, mak­ing false rep­re­sen­ta­tions to their par­ents and care­givers, and kid­nap­ping."

The lo­cal con­sta­ble, ac­cord­ing to Dr Pierre, was in­ter­viewed about the al­le­ga­tions made by the Venezue­lan traf­fick­er. The con­sta­ble de­nied he was ever a mem­ber of any hu­man traf­fick­ing gang. Ques­tioned why a known traf­fick­er would have his phone num­ber, the con­sta­ble stat­ed that he did not know why, and that hav­ing some­one's phone num­ber in one's pos­ses­sion does not con­sti­tute a crime.

The con­sta­ble was not aware, ac­cord­ing to the re­port, that the traf­fick­er had shown Dr Pierre a se­ries of cor­re­spon­dence be­tween both of them re­lat­ed to hu­man traf­fick­ing ac­tiv­i­ties be­tween Venezuela and T&T.

A deputy of the Na­tion­al As­sem­bly of Venezuela, who com­ment­ed on this traf­fick­ing net­work said, "It is a net­work that us­es the same strat­e­gy, of­fer­ing false jobs and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of earn­ing mon­ey to peo­ple liv­ing in ex­treme pover­ty, and then clan­des­tine­ly tak­ing them out of the coun­try and sell­ing them to oth­er crim­i­nal gangs."

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Cops un­der watch

When Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith was con­tact­ed about the con­tent of the re­port and the con­cerns raised about the al­leged heavy con­nec­tiv­i­ty of lo­cal po­lice of­fi­cers in the hu­man traf­fick­ing trade, Grif­fith said these po­lice of­fi­cers were be­ing close­ly mon­i­tored.

Grif­fith said he could not de­ny the facts that po­lice of­fi­cers were sus­pect­ed to be in­volved in such ac­tiv­i­ty. "In fact, we have, via in­tel­li­gence, a list of sev­er­al po­lice of­fi­cers and we are mon­i­tor­ing their in­volve­ment in such. Peo­ple may ask why we have not ar­rest­ed them, but there is a dif­fer­ence be­tween in­tel­li­gence and ev­i­dence.

"South West­ern Di­vi­sion de­lib­er­ate­ly turns a blind eye to these il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties. There is a very big mar­ket here and there is a sick de­mand, there is al­so child pros­ti­tu­tion and child pornog­ra­phy."

Grif­fith said he was try­ing to im­ple­ment sys­tems to pre­vent this grow­ing prob­lem.

"We have of­fi­cers tak­ing vol­un­tary poly­graph test­ing, and those per­sons who refuse is a red flag and, in that case, we have no choice but to re­as­sign them. We have to en­sure these of­fi­cers do not have the op­er­a­tional ca­pa­bil­i­ty to com­pro­mise po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions. These in­di­vid­u­als are be­ing mon­i­tored by the PSB, SIU," he ex­plained.

Last year Grif­fith trans­ferred close to 40 po­lice of­fi­cers for re­fus­ing to take poly­graph tests.

If of­fi­cers fail a poly­graph test, then the mat­ter must be re­ferred at the com­mis­sion­er's dis­cre­tion to the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion for ac­tion. A poly­graph test to date is not ad­mis­si­ble in court.

Epi­cen­tres of hu­man traf­fick­ing

Deputies of the Na­tion­al As­sem­bly iden­ti­fied three towns in east­ern Venezuela where hu­man traf­fick­ing to Trinidad oc­curs most fre­quent­ly.

Apart from Tu­cu­pi­ta, they pin­point­ed Guiria where there is an in­crease in crim­i­nal gangs that traf­fic weapons, drugs, food, peo­ple, and ex­ot­ic an­i­mals, due to the prox­im­i­ty to the coasts of T&T.

An­oth­er town near Guiria, called Ira­pa was al­so iden­ti­fied as a port of de­par­ture for Trinidad. In Ira­pa there is a high in­flu­ence of the cul­ture of Trinidad, es­pe­cial­ly in its ar­chi­tec­ture and gas­tron­o­my. There is al­so a boom in drug, food, and peo­ple-smug­gling to T&T.

The re­port iden­ti­fied sev­er­al epi­cen­tres in the re­gion for hu­man traf­fick­ing which not on­ly in­clud­ed T&T, but coun­tries like Venezuela, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Haiti, and Nicaragua. How­ev­er, the re­port stat­ed, that "Venezuela has the du­bi­ous dis­tinc­tion out of this group­ing as be­ing the great­est sup­pli­er of traf­fick­ing vic­tims to Trinidad and To­ba­go, USA and Cana­da.

The re­port point­ed out that "Venezuela is seen by traf­fick­ers as their pre­mier source of vic­tims for Trinidad and To­ba­go."

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, the traf­fick­ers re­vealed that the Trinida­di­an pop­u­la­tion seemed to pre­fer women from Venezuela who are younger and of lighter com­plex­ion, as these women at­tract­ed a high­er pre­mi­um and fi­nan­cial re­turn.

"Our re­search showed that many women sold as sex slaves first to crim­i­nal el­e­ments in Trinidad and To­ba­go and then to crim­i­nal el­e­ments in oth­er coun­tries."

Ac­cord­ing to the da­ta ob­tained for the re­gion of the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca, for hu­man traf­fick­ing op­er­a­tions, Venezuela record­ed the high­est at 15 per cent, fol­lowed close­ly by Brazil and Haiti with 11 per cent, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and the USA (ten per cent), fol­lowed by Mex­i­co (eight per cent), French/Dutch An­tilles (six per cent), Pe­ru (five per cent), Trinidad and To­ba­go (four per cent), Cana­da and Colom­bia (four per cent), Guyana (two per cent), Ja­maica (one per cent), and oth­er (sev­en per cent).

Dur­ing an in­ter­view for this re­port, Deputy of the Na­tion­al As­sem­bly, Robert Al­cala spoke of the in­crease in crimes re­lat­ed to hu­man traf­fick­ing in the west of Venezuela, specif­i­cal­ly in the states of Su­cre and Delta Amacuro. the deputy warned that there is a com­plic­i­ty be­tween mil­i­tary of­fi­cials and or­gan­ised crime gangs to kid­nap Venezue­lans and sell them to T&T.

The deputy al­so said that in East­ern Venezuela, the coastal towns of Guiria and Ira­pa are places that are fre­quent­ly used clan­des­tine­ly for hu­man traf­fick­ing.

The fig­ures of peo­ple traf­ficked in 2011 in com­par­i­son to 2019 were stag­ger­ing ac­cord­ing to da­ta com­piled by the In­sti­tu­to Na­cional de Es­tadis­ti­ca in Venezuela. In 2011 in Delta Amacuro the es­ti­mat­ed miss­ing or traf­ficked vic­tims were 1,042 but by 2019, that rose ex­po­nen­tial­ly to 8,568. In Delta Amacuro's cap­i­tal of Tu­cu­pi­ta, the fig­ures were al­so as­tound­ing—in 2011 some 932 peo­ple were miss­ing or traf­ficked, while in 2019 that surged to 7,250.

Chal­lenges com­bat­ing hu­man traf­fick­ing

The re­port stat­ed that ac­cord­ing to da­ta ob­tained, rough­ly 80,000-120,00 peo­ple are traf­ficked or smug­gled through the Caribbean an­nu­al­ly.

Curb­ing hu­man traf­fick­ing has posed mount­ing chal­lenges over the years. Some of the ma­jor chal­lenges faced in­clude:

*wide gaps in im­mi­gra­tion and bor­der con­trol for ease of forced mi­gra­tion

*lack of ad­e­quate in­tel­li­gence on the or­gan­ised crim­i­nal net­work

*in­ter­na­tion­al drugs/ mon­ey laun­der­ing/pros­ti­tu­tion/traf­fick­ing with vi­able de­mand and sup­ply forces

*high de­mand for sex and pros­ti­tu­tion ser­vices among the lo­cal pop­u­la­tion

*ease of re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el, which fa­cil­i­tates the move­ment of traf­fick­ers with­in the re­gion

*lack of an es­tab­lished pro­fil­ing sys­tem (who is a hu­man traf­fick­er)

*low con­vic­tion rate of hu­man traf­fick­ers in the re­gion

*vic­tims are not will­ing to tes­ti­fy against their al­leged traf­fick­er

*porous, un­se­cured bor­ders in the re­gion

*in­ad­e­quate po­lice train­ing and ed­u­ca­tion on the sub­ject in the re­gion

*and com­plic­it and cor­rupt pub­lic of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing po­lice of­fi­cers, im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers, and oth­er gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials

Through the lens of a pros­e­cu­tor

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, there are no overnight fix­es for these chal­lenges and there are al­so po­ten­tial prob­lems that pros­e­cu­tors face in these mat­ters.

Hu­man traf­fick­ing is re­gard­ed as a 'mon­ey-mak­ing' ven­ture, and there­fore it is rea­son­able to as­sume that all in­volved, es­pe­cial­ly a cor­rupt law en­force­ment of­fi­cial, may be par­tic­i­pat­ing to make mon­ey. The pros­e­cu­tor may find these of­fi­cials would be li­able for 'be­ing part of a crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tion" based on their des­ig­nat­ed role of pro­vid­ing pro­tec­tion and in­form­ing traf­fick­ers of the vul­ner­a­ble parts of the bor­der to en­sure en­try.

A pros­e­cut­ing at­tor­ney, "giv­en this ev­i­den­tiary ma­te­r­i­al sur­round­ing the al­leged cor­rupt con­duct of con­sta­ble X," would con­sid­er as a pos­si­ble out­come the fol­low­ing of­fences:

(i) per­vert­ing the course of jus­tice; (ii) cor­rupt­ly so­lic­it­ing mon­ey/cor­rupt­ing ac­cept­ing mon­ey or gifts;(iii) bribery;(iv) aid­ing and abet­ting the of­fences un­der the Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act; (v) ac­ces­so­ry be­fore/af­ter the fact; (vi) Il­lic­it en­rich­ment; (vii) con­spir­a­cy; (vi­ii) mon­ey laun­der­ing; (ix) breach­es of of­fences pro­vid­ed un­der traf­fick­ing in per­son leg­is­la­tion mod­elled on the Unit­ed Na­tions tem­plate.

The re­port in­di­cat­ed that a pros­e­cu­tor in T&T would have to prove any of these crimes be­yond a rea­son­able doubt and the is­sues would have to be ven­ti­lat­ed in a crim­i­nal court. "Of course, a vi­able pros­e­cu­tion would have to come from de­tailed in­ves­ti­ga­tions that have gath­ered ev­i­den­tiary ma­te­r­i­al cov­er­ing the in­gre­di­ents of the par­tic­u­lar of­fence."

What's the so­lu­tion?

Dr Pierre rec­om­mend­ed that a se­ries of things must be done at var­i­ous lev­els to pre­vent and min­imise hu­man traf­fick­ing and res­cue those who have been traf­ficked. The re­port stat­ed it must be a "well-re­sourced ef­fort at every lev­el—in­clud­ing pol­i­cy, fi­nan­cial, sen­si­ti­sa­tion and ed­u­ca­tion—both lo­cal­ly at the low­est com­mu­ni­ty lev­el and at the in­tra-re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al lev­els. Na­tion­al gov­ern­ment bud­gets must have ded­i­cat­ed fi­nan­cial and gov­er­nance frame­works to ef­fec­tive­ly craft pol­i­cy and work with in­ter­na­tion­al donors to move the nee­dle in the right di­rec­tion and to main­tain it for the long haul."

'Pub­lic of­fi­cials ei­ther in­volved or turn a blind eye'

The com­plic­i­ty and cor­rupt ac­tiv­i­ties of pub­lic of­fi­cials in hu­man traf­fick­ing is a ma­jor chal­lenge ac­cord­ing to a se­nior of­fi­cial in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty who has read the re­cent re­port pre­pared by Dr Pierre.

The of­fi­cial, speak­ing on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, told the Sun­day Guardian, "If they are not par­tic­i­pat­ing or fa­cil­i­tat­ing, many turn a blind eye to the il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties of their col­leagues." The of­fi­cial ad­dress­ing the is­sue about the de­mand by Trinida­di­an men for light-skinned women from neigh­bour­ing Venezuela said, "The Trinidad and To­ba­go male pop­u­la­tion prefers Latin Amer­i­can women, not just Venezue­lans. So women from Colom­bia and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic al­so ap­peal to them, it is just that it is cheap­er and eas­i­er to bring women from Venezuela than from Colom­bia and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic."

The se­nior of­fi­cial dis­agreed with the re­port's no­tion that there were "chal­lenges to com­bat hu­man traf­fick­ing in­clud­ing low per­cep­tion and aware­ness." The of­fi­cial said, "IN­TER­POL the US Gov­ern­ment and oth­ers have done a lot of work in the Caribbean over the past five years to train stake­hold­ers and to raise aware­ness and sev­er­al coun­tries have moved from de­nial to ac­cep­tance. Hence most Caribbean coun­tries en­act­ed Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons (TIPS) laws be­tween 2006 and 2016.

The re­port al­so in­di­cat­ed there was "in­ad­e­quate po­lice train­ing and ed­u­ca­tion on the sub­ject in the re­gion," but the of­fi­cial dis­agreed. "Again, much work had been done to train and build ca­pac­i­ty in the re­gion via re­gion­al donor-fund­ed projects im­ple­ment­ed by IN­TER­POL, the US Gov­ern­ment and oth­ers. That is why coun­tries that re­ceive Tier 3 and Tier 2 watch list ought to take heed of in­ter­na­tion­al donors and as­sis­tance," point­ed out the se­nior of­fi­cial."

The se­nior of­fi­cial al­so high­light­ed an­oth­er is­sue that has been plagu­ing the re­gion. "Hu­man and fi­nan­cial re­sources is sad­ly lack­ing for agen­cies to ef­fec­tive­ly re­spond to hu­man traf­fick­ing. There is al­so a need for more ef­fec­tive col­lab­o­ra­tion and co­or­di­na­tion at na­tion­al and Caribbean lev­els."

The of­fi­cial ques­tioned what is Cari­com do­ing about hu­man traf­fick­ing?"