Trinidad and To­ba­go is now un­der a State of Emer­gency, fol­low­ing a procla­ma­tion by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Car­la Kan­ga­loo in re­sponse to a "wide­spread and co­or­di­nat­ed na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty threat."

In a state­ment is­sued Fri­day, the Pres­i­dent said she was sat­is­fied that a pub­lic emer­gency had arisen, cit­ing re­cent de­vel­op­ments “of such a na­ture and on so ex­ten­sive a scale, as to be like­ly to en­dan­ger pub­lic safe­ty.” The State of Emer­gency took im­me­di­ate ef­fect na­tion­wide.

The move came af­ter a for­mal rec­om­men­da­tion from Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, based on in­tel­li­gence point­ing to the ex­is­tence of a so­phis­ti­cat­ed crim­i­nal net­work op­er­at­ing from in­side the prison sys­tem.

Ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, the net­work us­es smug­gled mo­bile phones to fa­cil­i­tate en­crypt­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions be­tween in­mates and out­side op­er­a­tives. It is al­leged­ly be­hind a se­ries of planned at­tacks tar­get­ing se­nior po­lice, mem­bers of the ju­di­cia­ry, the DPP’s of­fice, and prison of­fi­cials.

The TTPS says the group is linked to high-lev­el crimes in­clud­ing kid­nap­pings, ex­tor­tion, home in­va­sions, and at­tempts to in­fil­trate state-fund­ed pro­grammes. Law en­force­ment sources be­lieve the scale and co­or­di­na­tion of the threat ex­ceed what can be con­tained through rou­tine polic­ing.

Al­though no cur­few has been an­nounced, the State of Emer­gency grants ex­pand­ed pow­ers to se­cu­ri­ty forces for tar­get­ed op­er­a­tions and rapid re­sponse ac­tions. A mul­ti-agency Threat Re­sponse Group has al­ready been de­ployed.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie said tar­get­ed raids and covert op­er­a­tions have al­ready be­gun.

“The coun­try has been un­der a state of emer­gency for a cou­ple hours now. I will speak about it dur­ing the course of the morn­ing through ei­ther a re­lease or a press con­fer­ence,” he said.