Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds said yes­ter­day that the con­tin­ued bor­der breach­es by il­le­gal im­mi­grants in­volve some in the busi­ness sec­tor and rogue el­e­ments in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, among oth­er arms of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

Speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Hinds said many cit­i­zens were very in­volved and com­plic­it in the il­le­gal im­mi­gra­tion trade.

He re­vealed he even had de­tails giv­en to him by an in­for­mant.

“Yes­ter­day I got a call from an in­for­mant who got my phone and told me, Min­is­ter Hinds, they see the coast guard ves­sel when they on pa­trol so they know where it is head­ing. And there are peo­ple in that vil­lage in east-Trinidad who will call their crim­i­nal coun­ter­parts and say well, ‘Yuh come here now…yuh could move. This is part of the re­al­i­ty of it so the strug­gle is a se­ri­ous one,” said Hinds.

But it was no one-man op­er­a­tion Hinds said, as there are those in law en­force­ment who play a part.

He re­ferred to the re­cent bust of a cache of weapons, which was seized by the po­lice, at the Pi­ar­co Air­port on April 22, say­ing T&T had a re­al prob­lem as it was bat­tling breach­es of both il­le­git­i­mate and le­git­i­mate en­try points.

“We are not un­aware that there are com­plic­it or rogue el­e­ments in our ranks, in our ser­vices. Every­one is aware of that and I ex­pect the lead­er­ship of these or­gan­i­sa­tions to take ac­tion bold­ly, force­ful­ly, and swift­ly to deal with those Achilles heels, those soft un­der­bel­lies, those kinks in the amour, that ren­der all our in­vest­ments, all our work val­ue­less be­cause of their com­plic­i­ty,” said Hinds.

He called on law en­force­ment per­son­nel of low­er ranks to step up their game and op­er­ate at full throt­tle.

“My call to­day as Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is that to all of you, men and women of the Po­lice Ser­vice, the De­fense Force, the Prison Ser­vice, Fire Ser­vice, Cus­toms, Im­mi­gra­tion, the in­tel­li­gence plat­form…all of you who are sworn and who are paid to con­duct ex­er­cis­es in the pro­tec­tion of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go who are suf­fer­ing great trau­ma and pain and tears…you need to step up your game. You need to do like your lead­ers who I could vouch for, op­er­at­ing at full throt­tle.