Do­mini­can law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties Mon­day vowed to dis­man­tle a gun run­ning syn­di­cate af­ter the po­lice said that near­ly 50 guns, in­clud­ing as­sault ri­fles, had been seized at ports across the is­land since the month of Jan­u­ary this year.

The po­lice have al­so warned that they “will do what they have to do with­in the am­bit of the law” to cur­tail the il­le­gal guns trade,” while urg­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic “if they see some­thing, say some­thing to get rid of the il­le­gal firearms”

Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, Lin­coln Cor­bette, told a news con­fer­ence that apart from the firearms seized so far, the po­lice are en­gaged in an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the im­por­ta­tion of a large quan­ti­ty of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion in­to Do­mini­ca.

“I can re­port that the Firearms In­ves­tiga­tive Unit is cur­rent­ly con­duct­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the im­por­ta­tion of a large quan­ti­ty of firearm’s and am­mu­ni­tion in­to the state. This unit com­pris­es mem­bers of the Do­mini­ca Po­lice Force, the Cus­toms, Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit (FIU) among oth­er gov­ern­ment or­gan­i­sa­tions,” he said, adding “Due to the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to this mat­ter I won’t go in­to de­tails.

‘How­ev­er, dur­ing the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 23 of this year to June 14 of this year, a to­tal of 42 firearms and 220 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion were in­ter­cept­ed at the ports of en­try in­to Do­mini­ca. Among those firearms in­clude two as­sault type ri­fles, AR-15s.”

Cor­bette told re­porters that these ri­fles “are weapons of war, equiv­a­lent to the M-16 as car­ried by sol­diers,” adding that al­so so far this year, po­lice have in­ter­cept­ed sev­en firearms and 69 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion from the hands of sus­pect­ed crim­i­nals.

“So that brings it to 49 firearms and 289 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion that have been re­moved from the hands of crim­i­nals,” Cor­bette said, adding that “these seizures have led to the ar­rest of 21 in­di­vid­u­als for pos­ses­sion of firearms and traf­fick­ing of firearms”.

He said sev­en of those ar­rest­ed and charged have been con­vict­ed while the oth­er mat­ters are pend­ing in the courts.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ray­burn Black­moore told the news con­fer­ence that the au­thor­i­ties are work­ing with re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al law en­force­ment part­ners to dis­man­tle the syn­di­cate, ac­knowl­edg­ing that “cer­tain­ly we have a chal­lenge with il­le­gal firearms.

“Cer­tain­ly there is a syn­di­cate and the ori­gin of which we are com­mit­ted to dis­man­tle,” Black­moore said, not­ing that “work­ing in con­cert with our re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al law en­force­ment agen­cies, we shall con­tin­ue to do that”.

He said that the in­ter­cep­tion of the il­le­gal firearms and am­mu­ni­tion in the “re­cent past” demon­strates that the “process­es and sys­tems we have put in place are work­ing.

“The co­or­di­na­tion we have been able to do with our re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al law en­force­ment agen­cies is work­ing,” he said, adding that “the in­tel­li­gence we have been able to cul­ti­vate is al­so very ef­fec­tive”.

Black­moore said that the gov­ern­ment had been able to in­vest an es­ti­mat­ed EC$2.7 mil­lion (One EC dol­lar=US$0.37 cents) in ac­quir­ing scan­ners that are now in­stalled at all the ports of en­try here.

He said train­ing is al­so be­ing pro­vid­ed to lo­cal law en­force­ment of­fi­cials so as to trace il­le­gal firearms.

Black­moore ap­pealed to cit­i­zens with il­le­gal weapons to sur­ren­der them to the po­lice, adding those per­sons en­gaged in ob­struct­ing the po­lice while they are car­ry­ing out their du­ties should “be­have your­selves.

“While the po­lice are try­ing to pro­tect you, you are ob­struct­ing the po­lice. Those of us with chil­dren, who come home with bikes and ex­pen­sive Nike’s and stiff like that and not work­ing any­where, you should ask them where they get the mon­ey from.

“The onus is on us to do what we have to do, the church­es, the schools, al those pro­fes­sion­al fra­ter­ni­ties, silent on mat­ters of sig­nif­i­cance and loud on oth­er mat­ters of pol­i­tics. You have a role to play,” Black­moore said, adding that “you are not play­ing that role for (Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt) Sker­rit and Black­moore, you are play­ing that role for your­self”.

Black­moore said Do­mini­ca had a re­cent gun amnesty pro­gramme that was meant to al­low per­sons with il­le­gal firearms to bring them to the po­lice with­out fear of be­ing pros­e­cut­ed.

“You made a ra­tio­nal de­ci­sion to keep your firearm. So you must feel the full brunt of the law when you are caught with il­le­gal firearms. I am call­ing on every­one in­clud­ing the courts to take a se­ri­ous view of this mat­ter.

“Ladies and gen­tle­men, the laws con­cern­ing il­le­gal firearms in this coun­try are very strin­gent, As wer speak we are look­ing at the laws to fur­ther strength­en them,” he said, adding that the penal­ty for traf­fick­ing il­le­gal firearms car­ries a sen­tence of 35 years in jail or a fine of EC$700,000.

“That is the penal­ty spelt out in law…so it is for all of us to play our part and to have an ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the mag­ni­tude of this mat­ter,” he told re­porters.