Senior Reporter
shane.superville@guardian.co.tt
Officers from the Multi-Agency Task Force (MATF) and other state agencies are reviewing quarrying sites in an attempt to distinguish legitimate operations from illegal actors. The investigation is part of an ongoing response to illegal quarrying, as the trade continues to thrive in parts of the country although several arrests have been made.
Police say the actual number of suspected illegal quarries in T&T is difficult to estimate as operators often use legal loopholes to cover up their activities.
One officer said while there were several complaints about illegal quarrying in different parts of the country, further enquiries revealed that the work sites had Certificates of Environmental Clearance (CECs) authorising the clearing of the land for housing or other purposes. However, this might be a front.
Head of the MATF ASP Leon Haynes said the police were aware of several other suspected illegal quarrying operations and were investigating but it was very time-consuming given the details and depth required to make impactful arrests.
Referring to previous police efforts as “snatch and grab” exercises where truck drivers and machine operators were arrested, Haynes said such incidents had little effect on overall operations.
“You have to track the material, you have to follow the company, follow the money. It takes a long time to follow these different clues and collect evidence to find a perpetrator but it makes a much bigger impact,” he said.
Officers from the Financial Investigations Bureau (FIB) are also working on tracing the movements of money between accounts to determine how many people are benefiting from illegal quarrying under the Proceeds of Crime Act and officers from the Anti-Corruption Investigations Bureau (ACIB) have been called on to assist in tracing possible connections between public office holders and illegal quarries.
Haynes said it usually takes between eight to ten months to complete investigations into a single quarry and a recent batch of arrests were the results of a probe which began last December.
Given the time-intensive nature of such probes which usually involve different police units following different leads, speeding up the pace of those investigations requires more human and technical resources.
The MATF was formed in 2018 to tackle counterfeit operations, prostitution and gambling, which Haynes said requires significant focus and commitment from his officers.
“In this last investigation, everybody worked non-stop to get it to where it is now. We need technological resources like drones and vehicles that can actually go to a quarry without shutting down, fit-for-purpose vehicles,” he said.
In terms of staffing, Haynes said numbers are not as important as having skilled, experienced officers.
“Because investigations are so intensive, we need officers from cybercrime, we need officers from FIB, so it’s not about numbers per se,” he explained.
“You need to have persons who have training and understanding on how to collect and treat with evidence. When you’re going against high-level players, you’re going against high legal challenges.”
Information from the TTPS suggests that at least 52 people have been arrested since November 2019 for the offences of digging and removing minerals and processing minerals without a licence.