Young gang­sters who as­pire to the throne and want to seize pow­er from their el­ders have mount­ed a lead­er­ship chal­lenge which has caused un­bri­dled blood­shed over the last week, ac­cord­ing to se­nior of­fi­cers of the Crim­i­nal Gang and In­tel­li­gence Unit.

In­tel­li­gence sources with­in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) have told Guardian Me­dia that the fight for pow­er stretch­es across the East-West cor­ri­dor.

The sources said the war­fare in­volves not on­ly con­trol over drug turf, but al­so over State con­tracts award­ed to gang lead­ers.

As Guardian Me­dia has re­port­ed ex­clu­sive­ly sev­en known gang lead­ers have re­ceived con­tracts from the state val­ued at over $6 mil­lion.

On Fri­day, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young met with heads of the de­fence and pro­tec­tive ser­vices as well as in­tel­li­gence agen­cies to ad­dress the cur­rent crime sit­u­a­tion, which Young de­scribed as “un­ac­cept­able.”

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith did not at­tend the meet­ing.

It is not clear if he is out of the coun­try. But the Po­lice Ser­vice was rep­re­sent­ed by Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Harold Phillip.

The meet­ing at the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Fu­sion Cen­tre was al­so at­tend­ed by Chief of De­fence Staff Air Com­modore Dar­ryl Daniel; Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Dane Clarke; Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer Char­maine Gand­hi-An­drews; their re­spec­tive teams; as well as of­fi­cials from the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency and Transna­tion­al Or­gan­ised Crime Unit.

In a press re­lease, Young’s of­fice said dis­cus­sions fo­cused on the im­me­di­ate im­ple­men­ta­tion of a num­ber of in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven op­er­a­tions and in­te­grat­ed crime-fight­ing strate­gies to mit­i­gate the present crime sit­u­a­tion which Young de­scribed as un­ac­cept­able.

Young al­so re­it­er­at­ed that he will con­tin­ue to pro­vide the nec­es­sary sup­port to all Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Agen­cies.

The Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter along with law en­force­ment, bor­der se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials and in­tel­li­gence agen­cies present, gave the com­mit­ment to ex­e­cute their re­spec­tive re­mits to en­sure a safe and se­cure en­vi­ron­ment for all per­sons in Trinidad and To­ba­go.