Gail Alexan­der

A to­tal of 462 per­sons have been ar­rest­ed in this week's state of emer­gency op­er­a­tions, in­clud­ing two per­sons de­scribed as two of T&T's "biggest gang lead­ers", who were ar­rest­ed at the Hy­att Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day morn­ing. The two had booked in­to the ho­tel's US$1,600 (TT$9,600) a night pres­i­den­tial suite since last Sun­day when the state of emer­gency was an­nounced, a Gov­ern­ment spokesman con­firmed. The spokesman said the lo­ca­tion of the per­sons be­came known af­ter they en­gaged nu­mer­ous call girls dur­ing the week. The two, along with a fe­male gang mem­ber, were ar­rest­ed yes­ter­day by se­cu­ri­ty forces in the op­er­a­tion "Dis­rupt and Dis­man­tle Gangs", which has been mount­ed since the state of emer­gency be­gan. Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day de­scribed it as a "ma­jor break­through" in op­er­a­tions.

At yes­ter­day's dai­ly me­dia brief­ing at the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry, Port-of-Spain, Min­is­ter John Sandy said among the mul­ti­ple ar­rests of the last 24 hours, were two "no­to­ri­ous" gang lead­ers. Sandy said a third gang leader, who fled to To­ba­go, al­so was ar­rest­ed. He said even though peo­ple were mi­grat­ing to oth­er ar­eas, se­cu­ri­ty forces al­so had those cov­ered. On whether a na­tion­al threat from crim­i­nals was still im­mi­nent, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan said: "Un­less and un­til vi­o­lent crime was re­duced, the state of emer­gency is one that is bear­ing fruit." Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs gave the cu­mu­la­tive to­tal of 462 de­tainees for the week. Gibbs said this in­clud­ed 190 gang lead­ers in the op­er­a­tion "to dis­rupt and dis­man­tle gangs".

Gibbs said the last 24-hour op­er­a­tion fig­ure had net­ted 147 more peo­ple. Of this num­ber 75 were re­lat­ed to gangs. Gibbs al­so not­ed eight oth­ers (in­volved in homi­cides), 21 (drug-re­lat­ed of­fences) four (cur­few-break­ing), one (firearm-re­lat­ed of­fences), 19 (se­ri­ous of­fences), four (out­stand­ing war­rants) and 150 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion seized. While Gibbs de­clined de­tails of the Hy­att ar­rests, a Gov­ern­ment spokesman said the two per­sons ar­rest­ed yes­ter­day were from one of the biggest gangs in T&T. They said the unit was in­volved in drug-traf­fick­ing and gun-run­ning and had ties ex­tend­ing to North and South Amer­i­ca. The gang is based in east Port-of-Spain/Laven­tille, they added.

A spokesman in­volved in yes­ter­day's ar­rests said the gang mem­bers were among a num­ber who had checked in­to the ho­tel last week­end and were "com­ing and go­ing." They said or­ders were placed at "some of the finest restau­rants for cham­pagne and food" dur­ing the per­sons' stay. The spokesman said those ar­rest­ed in­clud­ed a fe­male gang mem­ber, list­ed in the gang's "cor­po­rate struc­ture" as the gang's "pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer", earn­ing a salary of $35,000 month­ly. At yes­ter­day's me­dia brief­ing, Ram­lo­gan said the per­cep­tion of gangs should not be con­fined to places like Nel­son Street or "The Plan­nings".

Ram­lo­gan added: "You'll be shocked at where some of them are housed and the ex­tent of the lux­u­ry in which they live. Check their bank ac­counts, the carat of gold they wear, the amount of house they buy in cash and the num­ber of girl­friends they 'mind­ing.' "They have four and five res­i­dences and they move from place to place. "He said lo­cal stud­ies show dom­i­nant gangs have a leader and sub-com­man­ders and al­so had "cells". Some of­ten over­whelmed some gangs by vi­o­lence, bring­ing in guns to re­cruit youths. Ram­lo­gan added: "The cash they get from crime, some are used to es­tab­lish dance halls and night­clubs. They pro­mote fetes and con­certs, bring­ing in for­eign artistes, and make mil­lions. They spon­sor com­mu­ni­ty ac­tiv­i­ties like bas­ket­ball tour­na­ments.

"Some form le­git­i­mate busi­ness­es and promise jobs. They don't wear a jack­et and tie but they have more mon­ey than the man in jack­et and tie," Ram­lo­gan added. He said casi­nos had re­port­ed that they earned $600,000 to $700,00 night­ly from gang mem­bers. Ram­lo­gan said the gangs' struc­ture was copied from Amer­i­can coun­ter­parts and some had a "board of di­rec­tors" in their big busi­ness op­er­a­tions. Gibbs said po­lice had to sort through all the peo­ple and ev­i­dence ob­tained, so far, "so who's who in the zoo will take a lit­tle work," he added. "So far we are see­ing suc­cess­es. Dur­ing the time of the state of emer­gency there has been some crime but to a lim­it­ed ex­tent and we in­tend to con­tin­ue dis­man­tling the gangs," Gibbs said.