Jesse Ramdeo 

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has dis­missed as fake news a CNN re­port claim­ing the Unit­ed King­dom was with­hold­ing in­tel­li­gence shar­ing from the Unit­ed States over re­gion­al an­ti-drug op­er­a­tions, warn­ing that “there are bla­tant at­tempts to un­der­mine on­go­ing ef­forts to con­front nar­co-traf­fick­ers and or­gan­ised crime.”

In a post on X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter) on Thurs­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the sto­ry, which was al­so cir­cu­lat­ed by some lo­cal out­lets, was false and part of a de­lib­er­ate ef­fort to spread mis­in­for­ma­tion.

“Once again, U.S. Sec­re­tary of State @Se­cRu­bio has re­fut­ed a false re­port pub­lished in the in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia — a sto­ry that was ir­re­spon­si­bly re­peat­ed by some lo­cal out­lets and pre­sent­ed to our cit­i­zens as fact,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed the re­port as part of “bla­tant at­tempts to un­der­mine on­go­ing ef­forts to con­front nar­co-traf­fick­ers and or­gan­ised crime.”

She said her gov­ern­ment re­mains com­mit­ted to close co­op­er­a­tion with the Unit­ed States in tack­ling transna­tion­al crim­i­nal net­works.

“The Caribbean can­not be called a zone of peace, and Trinidad and To­ba­go will not be one, so long as pow­er­ful car­tels con­tin­ue to wreak hav­oc and de­stroy lives,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

She added that her ad­min­is­tra­tion is strength­en­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems to com­bat the flow of drugs, guns, and hu­man traf­fick­ing, warn­ing that the il­lic­it trade has fu­elled decades of vi­o­lence and in­sta­bil­i­ty.