Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Se­nior po­lice sources sus­pect that a re­cent an­nounce­ment of strength­ened col­lab­o­ra­tions be­tween this coun­try’s se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus and the CIA and FBI may be as a re­sult of the in­flux in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go of au­to­mat­ic weapons from both North and South Amer­i­ca.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at White­hall yes­ter­day, the Prime Min­is­ter re­vealed that he spoke with se­nior of­fi­cials from the CIA and FBI dur­ing his vis­it to Wash­ing­ton DC this week.

When pressed for clar­i­ty on what prompt­ed the meet­ing with the US of­fi­cials and what led to his un­ease, Row­ley said T&T was be­ing “liked” by cer­tain in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­ised crime fig­ures.

“We are an open coun­try in in­ter­na­tion­al trade, in­ter­na­tion­al con­tact. And even out­side of our of­fi­cial en­try points, what we have been dis­cov­er­ing is that cer­tain crim­i­nals are ‘lik­ing’ us and these are not small-timers. I say no more on that,” Row­ley said.

Mo­ments af­ter Row­ley’s dis­clo­sure, one se­nior po­lice source re­ferred to the seizure of a quan­ti­ty of au­to­mat­ic weapons in San­ta Cruz last Oc­to­ber, not­ing the ma­jor­i­ty of the guns were traced to the US, with the two .50-cal­i­bre ma­chine guns orig­i­nat­ing from Colom­bia.

The source sug­gest­ed the weapons were be­ing brought in by crim­i­nals who were al­ready im­pris­oned.

Point­ing to an in­stance where firearm com­po­nents were shipped in box­es for tele­vi­sion parts, the of­fi­cer not­ed that crim­i­nals were be­ing more in­no­v­a­tive in how they were trans­port­ing weapons.

“No one would sus­pect when metal­lic parts are trans­port­ed in a box con­tain­ing these parts. Even if they search the items, they may not think much of it when they see cer­tain com­po­nents in it.”

An­oth­er source not­ed that in ad­di­tion to these con­cerns, the col­lab­o­ra­tion with the US may be in re­sponse to trends where in­ter­na­tion­al fig­ures have come to the Caribbean to ex­pand their in­flu­ence.

One of­fi­cer con­firmed T&T has been vis­it­ed in the past by peo­ple sus­pect­ed of be­ing “ma­jor play­ers” in the in­ter­na­tion­al drug traf­fick­ing trade.

The source dis­closed that a man be­lieved to be a part of a car­tel in Colom­bia flew in­to Trinidad in 2022 and vis­it­ed a T&T cit­i­zen in Cen­tral Trinidad for two weeks.

“The in­di­vid­ual was heav­i­ly mon­i­tored and sur­veilled for the du­ra­tion of his vis­it. How­ev­er, be­cause of how these things work we were un­able to ar­rest or do any­thing be­sides pay close at­ten­tion, as the per­son was be­ing mon­i­tored by an­oth­er ex­ter­nal agency.”

The source ar­gued, how­ev­er, that a re­luc­tance by ex­ter­na se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies to share cer­tain in­for­ma­tion with the TTPS may crip­ple an ef­fec­tive re­sponse from lo­cal law en­force­ment.

The of­fi­cer not­ed that in­di­vid­u­als who were be­ing mon­i­tored by in­ter­na­tion­al law en­force­ment agen­cies had their pass­ports “flagged” but fur­ther in­for­ma­tion was on­ly avail­able to se­nior of­fi­cers.

The source said there was an in­ci­dent where a per­son flagged by in­ter­na­tion­al au­thor­i­ties as be­ing a “ma­jor play­er” in or­gan­ised crime vis­it­ed T&T but said lo­cal au­thor­i­ties were not ap­prised of any in­for­ma­tion.

“I re­call an ACP was called in­to a meet­ing with the DEA li­ai­son and not much in­for­ma­tion was re­vealed af­ter that.”

The of­fi­cer said while there was some op­ti­mism that lo­cal au­thor­i­ties would re­ceive some as­sis­tance in crime-fight­ing from in­creased col­lab­o­ra­tion with the FBI and CIA, more part­ner­ship and trust is need­ed.

“It can­not be a sit­u­a­tion where we (the po­lice) on­ly know about the when and not the lo­ca­tion but the in­di­vid­u­als in­volved and no fur­ther con­text. We are al­ways called up­on to pro­vide sup­port for man­pow­er but no fur­ther in­for­ma­tion is pro­vid­ed.”