Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

Near­ly three out of every four firearms re­cov­ered in Trinidad and To­ba­go and sub­mit­ted to US au­thor­i­ties for trac­ing in 2025 were linked to the US firearms mar­ket, a sharp in­crease from just over half in 2020.

Of the 279 firearms re­cov­ered in T&T and sub­mit­ted to the US Bu­reau of Al­co­hol, To­bac­co, Firearms and Ex­plo­sives (ATF) for trac­ing last year, 204 were iden­ti­fied as US-sourced, ac­count­ing for 73.1 per cent.

The fig­ure formed part of a six-year Guardian Me­dia ex­am­i­na­tion of ATF da­ta, which showed that 1,116 of the 1,777 firearms re­cov­ered in T&T and sub­mit­ted to the agency for trac­ing be­tween 2020 and 2025 were US-sourced.

That means 62.8 per cent of the firearms sub­mit­ted for trac­ing over the six-year pe­ri­od were ei­ther man­u­fac­tured in the Unit­ed States or man­u­fac­tured else­where and legal­ly im­port­ed in­to the US firearms mar­ket be­fore mak­ing their way to this coun­try.

The US con­nec­tion has grown steadi­ly. In 2020, 155 of the 298 firearms sub­mit­ted for trac­ing were US-sourced, rep­re­sent­ing 52 per cent. By 2025, that had risen to 73.1 per cent.

The ATF clas­si­fi­ca­tion, how­ev­er, does not es­tab­lish who smug­gled the firearms in­to T&T or the route they took to get here. It shows that the firearms passed through the US com­mer­cial sys­tem.

The fig­ures are sig­nif­i­cant in a coun­try where firearms are used in most mur­ders. TTPS da­ta pub­lished in a 2026 study in the in­ter­na­tion­al jour­nal Glob­al Crime showed that firearms were used in 3,072 of the 3,723 mur­ders record­ed be­tween 2018 and 2024, or 82.5 per cent.

The same study found that 7,875 of 10,263 mur­ders record­ed be­tween 2000 and 2024 in­volved il­le­gal firearms, ac­count­ing for 76.7 per cent. Be­tween 2017 and 2024, the fig­ure rose to 81.8 per cent.

Hu­man cost

The same Glob­al Crime study, us­ing TTPS da­ta, found that 7,875 of 10,263 mur­ders record­ed be­tween 2000 and 2024 in­volved il­le­gal firearms. That is 76.7 per cent over 25 years. For the more re­cent pe­ri­od, 2017 to 2024, this rose to 81.8 per cent.

Old­er po­lice records showed the pat­tern was al­ready well es­tab­lished a decade ago. TTPS re­port­ed that 80.9 per cent of mur­ders in 2015 were firearm-re­lat­ed and 75.5 per cent in 2016. In 2023, the In­ter-Amer­i­can Se­cu­ri­ty Ob­ser­va­to­ry record­ed 498 of this coun­try’s 577 homi­cide vic­tims as hav­ing been killed with a firearm.

The pub­lic da­ta are less com­plete when the vic­tims are bro­ken down by sex and age. For ex­am­ple, OAS records showed that there were 523 male and 54 fe­male homi­cide vic­tims in 2023 and sep­a­rate­ly 498 firearm killings. It did not pub­lish how many of those 498 firearm vic­tims were men, women or chil­dren.

The child bul­lets left be­hind

But the hu­man tal­ly of the il­lic­it gun trade re­mains stag­ger­ing.

Sev­en-month-old Har­moni Clarke sur­vived the night her par­ents were shot to death be­cause, po­lice be­lieve, Ko­rey Clarke and Saman­tha Patrick used their bod­ies to shield her from the bul­lets. Near­ly four years lat­er, she still re­acts to the sound of gun­fire and looks to the stars for the moth­er and fa­ther she lost.

Clarke and Patrick, both 30, were killed at their Aboud Cir­cu­lar, Dun­don­ald Hill home late on Oc­to­ber 26, 2022. Po­lice said the cou­ple had re­tired to bed with Har­moni when gun­men opened fire. An­tho­ny Clarke, Ko­rey’s fa­ther, lat­er found his grand­daugh­ter un­der her moth­er: alive and un­harmed. The cou­ple had been prepar­ing for Har­moni’s chris­ten­ing. Three men were charged with the mur­ders in No­vem­ber 2022 and a fourth man was lat­er held and charged.

An­tho­ny said the fam­i­ly has had to raise Har­moni with the knowl­edge that her par­ents will nev­er come home. She is now old enough to ask ques­tions and, when rel­a­tives tell her what hap­pened, she an­swers in the on­ly way she knows how.

“No, guns ain’t kill my moth­er and fa­ther, my moth­er and fa­ther in heav­en, and they smil­ing at me,” Clarke re­called her say­ing.

He said when she looks in­to the night sky, she search­es for them. “If she look up in the sky and she see stars es­pe­cial­ly, she will say, ‘look my moth­er and my fa­ther, they look­ing down at me’.”

But the sound of gun­fire, fire­works or fire­crack­ers can still send her run­ning. Clarke said: “If we there and she watch­ing that TV and she hear a gun go off, she go bow down ... some­thing like fire­work, fire­crack­er, go boom, boom, she go run in­side.”

The vi­o­lence around the fam­i­ly has not dis­ap­peared. A Guardian Me­dia re­view of pub­lished re­ports found at least eight sep­a­rate shoot­ings in Dun­don­ald Hill and neigh­bour­ing Belle Vue since Clarke and Patrick were killed, leav­ing at least sev­en peo­ple dead and six wound­ed.

For An­tho­ny, every new vic­tim brings the night his son and daugh­ter-in-law were killed back to him. “Every time I look on the news and see a child male and a fe­male get gunned down, it sends me straight back to my son and my daugh­ter-in-law,” he said.

Still, he said he has not lost faith in the po­lice. “I have that con­fi­dence,” he said. “I pray God that they will get in one and move out all them vi­o­lence and go and get the guns off the street.”

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin said the trac­ing da­ta can help po­lice un­der­stand not on­ly where guns orig­i­nate, but how they are get­ting in­to this coun­try.

“I think it tells us that it’s im­por­tant that we con­tin­ue work­ing with the US to en­sure that we can re­al­ly trace these firearms be­cause when we do so, it helps us in a lot of ways, es­pe­cial­ly here in Trinidad and To­ba­go, where we’re able to see the man­u­fac­tur­er, un­der­stand ex­act­ly the dif­fer­ent ways in which those firearms get to Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Ben­jamin told Guardian Me­dia in a sit-down in­ter­view last Wednes­day.

Ben­jamin said the in­for­ma­tion is al­so be­ing used to tar­get crim­i­nal net­works.

“What we’re try­ing to do is to en­sure that we can dis­rupt the work­ing of these gangs and these in­ter­na­tion­al gangs that want to per­pe­trate the crimes with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

The lat­est ATF da­ta al­so showed the type of guns be­ing sent for trac­ing. Of the 279 firearms re­cov­ered in T&T in the 2025 re­port, 183 were pis­tols and 63 were re­volvers. To­geth­er, hand­guns ac­count­ed for 246 traces, or 88.2 per cent. There were al­so 17 ri­fles, eight shot­guns and eight firearms list­ed in oth­er cat­e­gories.

Of the 204 US-sourced firearms in 2025, 104 were man­u­fac­tured in the Unit­ed States. An­oth­er 100 were made out­side the US but had been legal­ly im­port­ed in­to the Amer­i­can firearms mar­ket. The ATF clas­si­fi­ca­tion showed that a gun passed through the US com­mer­cial sys­tem. It does not prove who smug­gled it in­to T&T or the route it took to get here.

The ATF fig­ures do not rep­re­sent every firearm re­cov­ered by po­lice in T&T.

ATF said that not every firearm used in crime is traced and that the weapons sub­mit­ted to the agency are not a ran­dom sam­ple of all guns be­ing used by crim­i­nals.

Trac­ing is an in­ves­tiga­tive tool.

Once po­lice pro­vide the firearm’s iden­ti­fy­ing in­for­ma­tion, ATF at­tempts to fol­low the weapon through the man­u­fac­tur­er or im­porter, dis­trib­u­tors and li­censed deal­ers to the first re­tail pur­chas­er.

But that trail some­times goes cold.

In 2025, 204 US-sourced firearms re­cov­ered in T&T were sub­mit­ted for trac­ing.

ATF was able to iden­ti­fy the first US re­tail pur­chas­er for 72.

An­oth­er 32 were traced to a for­eign gov­ern­ment, deal­er or oth­er en­ti­ty.

For the re­main­ing 100—49 per cent—ATF was un­able to de­ter­mine the first pur­chas­er.

ATF said this can hap­pen for sev­er­al rea­sons, in­clud­ing in­com­plete records, miss­ing firearm in­for­ma­tion, al­tered or oblit­er­at­ed se­r­i­al num­bers and firearms that are too old to trace.

The ATF’s lat­est sta­tis­tics came days af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar raised the il­le­gal move­ment of firearms at the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said so­phis­ti­cat­ed crim­i­nal net­works were mov­ing weapons, nar­cotics and il­lic­it mon­ey across bor­ders and said T&T would use its up­com­ing term on the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil to push for stronger trac­ing, in­for­ma­tion shar­ing and co­op­er­a­tion be­tween coun­tries where il­le­gal weapons orig­i­nate, pass through and even­tu­al­ly end up.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar told the UN: “Al­though the re­gion doesn’t man­u­fac­ture these weapons, the avail­abil­i­ty fu­els gun vi­o­lence, or­gan­ised crime, drug traf­fick­ing, and loss of life across our so­ci­eties.”

She said T&T would push for stronger in­ter­na­tion­al trac­ing, in­for­ma­tion shar­ing, bor­der and mar­itime co­op­er­a­tion and greater co­op­er­a­tion be­tween source, tran­sit and des­ti­na­tion coun­tries while serv­ing on the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

A mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar black mar­ket

The num­ber of guns is on­ly one as­pect of the il­le­gal trade. Gov­ern­ment in­tel­li­gence has al­so put a price on it.

In its 2024 re­port on the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of cit­i­zens, Par­lia­ment’s Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty de­scribed the lo­cal il­le­gal firearms in­dus­try as lu­cra­tive. Based on in­for­ma­tion sub­mit­ted by the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency, the com­mit­tee put its val­ue be­tween $56.169 mil­lion to $144.362 mil­lion and cit­ed an av­er­age black-mar­ket price of $17,429 for a firearm.

An SSA pre­sen­ta­tion on black-mar­ket prices gives an idea of what in­di­vid­ual guns were sell­ing for. In the first quar­ter of 2022, the agency list­ed a re­volver cost­ing $8,000, a gener­ic .380, 9mm or .40-cal­i­bre pis­tol was priced at $17,000, a Glock at $20,000 and a full-au­to­mat­ic Glock at $40,000. A shot­gun was put at $12,000, a Tec-9 or Mac-10/11 at $25,000, an AR-15 or Dra­co at $45,000 and a FAL or SLR ri­fle at $35,000.

The prices were not fixed. By Ju­ly 2023, the same SSA pre­sen­ta­tion showed the es­ti­mat­ed price of an AR-15 falling from about $45,000 to $22,000 and a Glock from $20,000 to TT$15,000. The agency said sup­ply may have sur­passed de­mand for some pop­u­lar weapons.

Guardian Me­dia ap­plied the SSA’s first-quar­ter 2022 price list as a sin­gle bench­mark to TTPS seizure da­ta pub­lished in the Glob­al Crime study. Po­lice seized 6,432 firearms be­tween 2017 and 2024. They in­clud­ed 3,431 pis­tols, 1,397 re­volvers, 556 shot­guns, 533 ri­fles and 115 sub­ma­chine guns, along with 327 home­made shot­guns and 73 firearms placed in an ‘oth­er’ cat­e­go­ry.

Us­ing $17,000 for a gener­ic pis­tol, $8,000 for a re­volver, $12,000 for a shot­gun, the low­er $35,000 list­ed price for a ri­fle and $25,000 for a sub­ma­chine gun puts the no­tion­al val­ue of the 6,032 com­pa­ra­ble weapons around $97.7 mil­lion. Home­made shot­guns and the “oth­er” cat­e­go­ry were ex­clud­ed be­cause there was in­for­ma­tion on pric­ing from the SSA pub­lished.

That $97.7 mil­lion is not an es­ti­mate of how much crim­i­nals ac­tu­al­ly paid over the eight years. Prices changed, in­di­vid­ual mod­els dif­fered and some guns may have been used, dam­aged or stolen. It is a con­stant-price bench­mark to show the scale of the weapons po­lice re­moved. Us­ing the par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee’s over­all av­er­age price of $17,429 across all 6,432 seized guns would pro­duce a sep­a­rate bench­mark of about $112.1 mil­lion.

Po­lice re­cov­ered 1,064 firearms in 2017 but 656 in 2024, a de­cline of around 38 per cent. The Glob­al Crime re­searchers said that a low­er seizure count does not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean few­er il­le­gal guns are cir­cu­lat­ing.

How guns get in

Par­lia­ment’s 2024 in­ves­ti­ga­tion al­so showed why trac­ing a gun mat­ters. The SSA es­ti­mat­ed that 11,043 il­le­gal firearms were cir­cu­lat­ing in T&T in 2021

It said that was 17 per cent high­er than its 2019 es­ti­mate. The com­mit­tee said that, based on the 2019 and 2021 es­ti­mates, the pro­por­tion of il­le­gal firearms be­ing seized was be­low ten per cent.

The com­mit­tee iden­ti­fied 123 il­le­gal ports around the coun­try and said 66 were be­ing used to fa­cil­i­tate the move­ment of il­le­gal firearms and am­mu­ni­tion. It al­so list­ed nine le­gal ports as key lo­ca­tions for con­tra­band. Dur­ing ev­i­dence to the com­mit­tee, po­lice said trac­ing and in­tel­li­gence had point­ed to le­gal ports as a ma­jor route for guns en­ter­ing the coun­try.

Cus­toms told the com­mit­tee that be­tween Jan­u­ary and Au­gust 2022 it scanned 3,998 of about 23,000 con­tain­ers en­ter­ing the Port of Port-of-Spain, about 17 per cent. The con­tain­er ex­am­i­na­tion sta­tion had 14 bays, but Cus­toms said staffing al­lowed it to as­sign on­ly three ex­am­i­na­tion of­fi­cers.

Those fig­ures de­scribe con­di­tions in 2022, not the cur­rent lev­el of scan­ning, but they form part of the doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of how au­thor­i­ties said guns were get­ting through.

The SSA’s 2023 an­nu­al re­port went fur­ther. It said il­le­gal firearm traf­fick­ing from the Unit­ed States con­tin­ued to ex­pand in the Caribbean and that in­tel­li­gence re­ports had con­firmed cor­rupt pub­lic of­fi­cials and busi­ness own­ers were fa­cil­i­tat­ing the im­por­ta­tion of il­le­gal firearms through reg­u­lat­ed ports of en­try. The re­port did not name the of­fi­cials or busi­ness­es.

This warn­ing was al­so be­ing made on the ground. In Sep­tem­ber 2023, then To­ba­go ACP Col­lis Hazel told Guardian Me­dia that most mur­ders in To­ba­go that year in­volved il­le­gal firearms. He said the coun­try does not man­u­fac­ture firearms and point­ed to porous bor­ders as the way weapons were en­ter­ing the coun­try.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, one po­lice source said the pat­tern of firearms now be­ing re­cov­ered ap­pears dif­fer­ent from what po­lice had been find­ing be­fore.

“For my ob­ser­va­tion, and I’ve said it on the ex­ec­u­tive’s chat, I seem to ob­serve that what we are find­ing now is pret­ty much some very old derelict firearms,” he said.

“On the con­trary, we’re not find­ing the nor­mal firearms that you used to be find­ing any­where,” he said. Asked whether of­fi­cers were now see­ing more re­volvers, he replied: “More re­volvers and shot­guns.” In the same ex­change, he de­scribed high-pow­ered weapons as “very, very rare.”

He said he could not say whether stronger US in­ter­dic­tion was re­spon­si­ble for the change, but said: “So, you won­der whether the in­ter­dic­tion from the US is help­ing ...”

Who is be­hind the trig­ger?

Guardian Me­dia asked DCP Ben­jamin whether po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions are go­ing be­yond the per­son caught with an il­le­gal gun to the peo­ple im­port­ing and sup­ply­ing the weapons.

“I think it is our in­ten­tion to en­sure that we go be­yond,” he said.

“We are catch­ing, I think that we are catch­ing the per­son with the firearms and I think that what you can­not see is the in­tel­li­gence that goes be­hind it.”

Ben­jamin said in­tel­li­gence work takes place be­hind the scenes and in­volves oth­er agen­cies.

“From the facts that I have, I know that we are go­ing af­ter those per­sons as well,” he said.

He said po­lice were tak­ing a “holis­tic ap­proach” to both the peo­ple han­dling firearms and those op­er­at­ing be­hind them.

Ben­jamin said re­cov­ered firearms are han­dled by trained crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors, prop­er­ly pack­aged and record­ed to main­tain the chain of cus­tody be­fore be­ing sent for foren­sic and bal­lis­tic ex­am­i­na­tion.

He said trac­ing and bal­lis­tic checks are used to de­ter­mine the his­to­ry of a weapon and whether it may have been con­nect­ed to oth­er shoot­ings.

He would not con­firm whether po­lice are now see­ing high-pow­ered firearms ar­riv­ing from Venezuela rather than the Unit­ed States.

“What I can tell you is that whether it is com­ing from Venezuela, whether it’s com­ing from the Unit­ed States or any oth­er place, Colom­bia or any­where, every firearm that we take off the streets is one firearm too much,” Ben­jamin said.

Thou­sands ar­rest­ed, but what hap­pens next?

Po­lice have made thou­sands of ar­rests. TTPS da­ta pub­lished in the Glob­al Crime study showed 8,570 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed for firearm of­fences be­tween 2018 and 2024. The an­nu­al to­tals moved sharply: 1,752 ar­rests in 2018, 1,286 in 2019, 584 in 2020, 580 in 2021, 1,703 in 2022, 1,481 in 2023 and 1,184 in 2024.

Ar­rests, how­ev­er, are not the same as con­vic­tions.

In Par­lia­ment in Oc­to­ber 2022, then na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds said 4,895 peo­ple had been ar­rest­ed for firearm of­fences be­tween 2018 and at that point in 2022. He sep­a­rate­ly said 462 peo­ple had been con­vict­ed for pos­ses­sion of firearms over the much longer pe­ri­od from 2012 to 2022. Of those, 239 re­ceived prison sen­tences, and 223 were fined.

Par­lia­ment had al­ready cre­at­ed a spe­cif­ic of­fence of traf­fick­ing in firearms or pro­hib­it­ed weapons through the Firearms (Amend­ment) Act, 2019. Since then, pub­lic po­lice and court re­ports show traf­fick­ing charges have been laid, but the out­comes are scat­tered across in­di­vid­ual cas­es Guardian Me­dia strug­gled to com­pile.

In Jan­u­ary 2020, Tushaun Nicholas and Elisa Oliv­ero Di­az were charged with traf­fick­ing in arms and am­mu­ni­tion af­ter po­lice re­port­ed find­ing a re­volver, a Beretta pis­tol, am­mu­ni­tion and drugs at a St Joseph house. In Jan­u­ary 2021, Curt Fer­di­nand, Dar­ryl Grant and David Rique were joint­ly charged with traf­fick­ing in firearms af­ter po­lice al­leged two home­made shot­guns and 15 rounds of 12-gauge am­mu­ni­tion were found in a ve­hi­cle in Ma­yaro.

Two months lat­er, act­ing po­lice in­spec­tor Kurl Ann McEach­nie, Cindy Gon­za­les and Jabari Mi­ran­da were charged with traf­fick­ing in firearms af­ter po­lice al­leged a Makarov .380 pis­tol, a si­lencer and am­mu­ni­tion were found at an Ari­ma res­i­dence. In Au­gust 2022, Dane Maraj was charged with traf­fick­ing in firearms and oth­er firearm-re­lat­ed of­fences af­ter an in­ves­ti­ga­tion that po­lice said led to the re­cov­ery of firearm com­po­nents and am­mu­ni­tion. Christo­pher Nor­eiga and Brent Wal­cott were al­so charged with traf­fick­ing in firearms lat­er that year in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion that fol­lowed the dead­ly Pen­ny­wise rob­bery at La Ro­maine.

Those are charges, not find­ings of con­vic­tion. Guardian Me­dia did not find fi­nal pub­lished out­comes for sev­er­al of those cas­es in its pub­lic-record search.

One lo­cal im­por­ta­tion case did end in a con­vic­tion. In Ju­ly 2022, Hafiesha Dil­lon was fined TT$40,000 af­ter plead­ing guilty to im­port­ing pro­hib­it­ed items un­der the Cus­toms Act. Cus­toms had in­ter­cept­ed ship­ping bar­rels at Pi­ar­co Air Ser­vices in 2017 and found 19 pack­ages con­tain­ing firearms and firearm com­po­nents hid­den among dog chow, flour and oth­er house­hold items.