Adding to ev­i­dence con­firm­ing the se­cret re­vival of the New Fly­ing Squad Unit (NF­SU), fur­ther in­for­ma­tion re­veals that in Oc­to­ber last year, the unit was ap­proached to in­ves­ti­gate a re­port about gang-re­lat­ed crime in Bel­mont. T&T Guardian in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed the di­rec­tive was giv­en with­out the knowl­edge of act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams who is re­spon­si­ble for sanc­tion­ing the set­ting up of such a unit.

Yes­ter­day Williams re­frained from com­ment­ing on the re­cent rev­e­la­tions, say­ing, "You are speak­ing to the wrong per­son. I have noth­ing fur­ther to say at this time."The com­plaint was sent to the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in Sep­tem­ber 2010 by con­cerned res­i­dents of Davis Street.The let­ter read, "The gang has be­come more or­gan­ised and is con­trolled by some­one who has links to both the po­lice and army. They have tak­en over a num­ber of aban­don (sic) prop­er­ties from which they trade in drugs and guns."

List­ing a house ad­dress, the let­ter said, "The par­tic­u­lar house of op­er­a­tion where they op­er­ate is at an an­nex to the back of this prop­er­ty. There are al­so pit­bulls which are not se­cured prop­er­ly and are a dan­ger to any­one on the road."The let­ter was ac­knowl­edged by the min­istry on Oc­to­ber 1 and in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed on Oc­to­ber 4 it was was brought to the at­ten­tion of new­ly-ap­point­ed Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NSOC) di­rec­tor Garvin Heer­ah.

On the front page of the let­ter is a note writ­ten by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Warn­er which says, "Garvin please see me on this ur­gent­ly."Yes­ter­day, the let­ter was for­ward­ed to the T&T Guardian by a man who claimed to be an NF­SU mem­ber who in­ves­ti­gat­ed the res­i­dents' com­plaint.Re­tired po­lice in­spec­tor Mervyn Cord­ner has claimed Warn­er re­called him to head the unit, which was dis­band­ed in the 1980s. Warn­er has de­nied any in­volve­ment in re­viv­ing the unit.

An e-mail from Heer­ah's ad­dress on Oc­to­ber 1 reads, "Please be ad­vised: (in­fo Mr Cord­ner) (1) I need the list of names of the po­ten­tial mem­bers, (2) The ob­jec­tives that were ini­tial­ly hand­ed in are present­ly be­ing re­viewed and ad­just­ed, (3) Need to meet on Wednes­day, stand by for the tim­ings by close of play to­day."Heer­ah could not be reached yes­ter­day for an ex­pla­na­tion of the e-mail.

Last week a se­ries of in­ter­nal e-mails from the min­istry showed a base was sought for the NF­SIU. A build­ing in Aranguez was deemed un­suit­able and in­stead the unit op­er­at­ed out of Fac­to­ry Road, Gold­en Grove Road, Arou­ca be­fore be­ing stymied by lack of fund­ing.