Sto­ries by An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Three men were tak­en in­to cus­tody by of­fi­cers from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) be­tween Sun­day night and ear­ly yes­ter­day, af­ter they were caught at­tempt­ing to smug­gle con­tra­band in­to the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) in Arou­ca via a drone.

And a sub­se­quent raid by po­lice with­in the fa­cil­i­ty led to the seizure of sev­er­al con­tra­band items stashed with­in cells by pris­on­ers.

Dur­ing the op­er­a­tion be­tween 7 pm Sun­day and 6 am yes­ter­day, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro di­rect­ed a mul­ti-agency team in the lat­est at­tempt to erad­i­cate the il­le­gal smug­gling of con­tra­band in­to the MSP.

In a re­lease sent via the TTPS yes­ter­day, Gue­var­ro con­firmed the ar­rests of the sus­pects, who were held ap­prox­i­mate­ly 50 me­tres out­side the prison walls, as well as the re­cov­ery of the aer­i­al drone equip­ment used and the pay­loads of il­lic­it items, among them nar­cotics, com­mu­ni­ca­tion de­vices and cig­a­rettes.

Along­side the op­er­a­tion be­ing con­duct­ed out­side the prison, si­mul­ta­ne­ous search­es with­in MSP led to the re­cov­ery of fur­ther il­lic­it items in sev­er­al cells.

As part of the op­er­a­tion, of­fi­cers al­so searched the premis­es of a known of­fend­er un­der Sec­tion 12 of the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions 2025 and im­pound­ed a ve­hi­cle sus­pect­ed to be linked to the smug­gling at­tempt.

Gue­var­ro salut­ed the of­fi­cers in­volved in the ex­er­cise.

“I com­mend all of­fi­cers and units in­volved in last night’s joint op­er­a­tion for their ex­cep­tion­al co­or­di­na­tion, dis­ci­pline, and tac­ti­cal pre­ci­sion. Your swift, in­tel­li­gence-led re­sponse dis­rupt­ed a so­phis­ti­cat­ed smug­gling at­tempt and led to the re­cov­ery of a sig­nif­i­cant cache of con­tra­band both out­side and with­in the Arou­ca Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison.”

He ad­mit­ted the lat­est ex­er­cise had shown the mag­ni­tude of the prob­lem with­in the prison sys­tem.

“The prison con­tin­ues to be a ma­jor point of con­cern for law en­force­ment, as or­gan­ised gangs and their lead­er­ship net­works strug­gle to adapt to the dy­nam­ic pre­ci­sion of our in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven polic­ing strate­gies,” the CoP said.

How­ev­er, he reaf­firmed, “This ex­er­cise re­in­forces our com­mit­ment to in­sti­tu­tion­al in­tegri­ty and pub­lic safe­ty.”

To all those in­volved in the col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort, he said, “You have my full re­spect and ap­pre­ci­a­tion.”

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on the lat­est op­er­a­tion at the MSP, act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Hay­den Forde praised the ef­forts of the teams in­volved in the ex­er­cise.

“MSP has al­ways been a hotbed for drone ac­tiv­i­ties,” Forde said via tele­phone.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing Gue­var­ro’s role in the over­all ef­fort, Forde added, “There have been sev­er­al in­cur­sions that took place over a pe­ri­od of time. This op­er­a­tion is a tan­gi­ble rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the strength and re­solve we pos­sess when we uni­fy our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty re­sources.”

Forde said he strong­ly be­lieves the ar­rests, cou­pled with the sig­nif­i­cant con­tra­band seizure in and out­side the MSP, had man­aged to de­liv­er “a pow­er­ful and un­am­bigu­ous mes­sage that the il­lic­it trade that threat­ens the safe­ty of our fa­cil­i­ties will not be tol­er­at­ed.”

He added, “We will con­tin­ue to col­lab­o­rate with all ex­ter­nal agen­cies to en­sure that in­ci­dents like these are un­earthed, and that per­sons caught try­ing to traf­fic items in­to the prison, will feel the full brunt of the law.”

Both Gue­var­ro and Forde re­newed the promise to safe­guard na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and up­hold the rule of law.

Al­so par­tic­i­pat­ing in the ex­er­cise along­side Gue­var­ro was new­ly ap­point­ed Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), Op­er­a­tions, Suzette Mar­tin. Mar­tin’s re­as­sign­ment as head of Op­er­a­tions took ef­fect on Sep­tem­ber 26, fol­low­ing a reshuf­fle of ex­ec­u­tive port­fo­lios with­in the hi­er­ar­chy of the TTPS.

Gue­var­ro and Mar­tin led the team, which in­clud­ed ASP Stan­ley; Se­nior Pris­ons Su­per­in­ten­dent Lee Davis and of­fi­cers from the Spe­cial In­ves­tiga­tive Unit (SIU); the Mul­ti Op­er­a­tional Po­lice Sec­tion (MOPS); the Crime Scene Unit CSU); the T&T De­fence Force Spe­cial­ist Units; the Fu­sion Cen­tre; and oth­er in­tel­li­gence en­ti­ties.

This was the lat­est such raid to be car­ried out as the coun­try re­mains un­der a State of Emer­gency (SoE), which was rec­om­mend­ed based on in­for­ma­tion that in­car­cer­at­ed in­mates at the MSP had re­port­ed­ly formed them­selves in­to an amal­ga­mat­ed crime syn­di­cate—and were or­gan­is­ing to car­ry out rob­beries, kid­nap­pings and as­sas­si­na­tions of high pro­file state of­fi­cials and oth­ers, in or­der to cre­ate chaos and dis­rupt the peace.

Sev­er­al high-pro­file in­mates were re­lo­cat­ed to the Tetetron Bar­racks, Ch­aguara­mas, at the start of the SoE in Ju­ly in or­der to re­store se­cu­ri­ty at the MSP.