Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Jack Warn­er de­nied up to the last that he had any knowl­edge of the ex­is­tence of the New Fly­ing Squad In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (NF­SIU) but new in­for­ma­tion shows mem­bers of the unit were part of a joint air-sur­veil­lance ex­er­cise by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NSOC) and T&T Air Guard (TTAG)

Con­tin­ued T&T Guardian in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the se­cret re­vival of the NF­SIU re­vealed that NF­SIU mem­bers were part of the sur­veil­lance of mar­i­jua­na fields in var­i­ous ar­eas of east Trinidad on Oc­to­ber 5, 2012, along with po­lice and mem­bers of the T&T Reg­i­ment's first and sec­ond bat­tal­ion (in­fantry).The ex­er­cise was arranged af­ter NF­SIU mem­bers re­ceived a tip-off about the mar­i­jua­na fields in east Trinidad, worth an es­ti­mat­ed $1 mil­lion.

The in­for­ma­tion, T&T Guardian learned, was hand­ed over to re­tired coast guard lieu­tenant com­man­der and NSOC di­rec­tor Garvin Heer­ah by NF­SIU head Mervyn Cord­ner.How mem­bers of the NF­SIU end­ed up aboard a he­li­copter which falls un­der the aus­pices of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty with­out Warn­er's knowl­edge is un­known but a De­fence Force of­fi­cial con­firmed to the T&T Guardian that two mem­bers of the NF­SIU were part of the ex­er­cise.

"We had an ex­er­cise in the hot-spot area in the east," said one, who did not want to be named for fear of be­ing rep­ri­mand­ed."It in­clud­ed joint air sup­port from the NSOC and the TTAG. It was a sur­veil­lance ex­er­cise. The ex­er­cise was on Oc­to­ber 5, 2012, in­volv­ing po­lice and mem­bers of the army."Asked specif­i­cal­ly if mem­bers of the NF­SIU were part of the ex­er­cise, the of­fi­cial first replied: "What about the NF­SIU you are ask­ing?"

Told the T&T Guardian had ob­tained a copy of the re­port that showed NF­SIU mem­bers were part of the ex­er­cise, the of­fi­cial then said: "Yes, but you know I pre­fer not to com­ment about that."NF­SIU mem­bers were picked up at Camp Cu­mu­to in Waller­field for the ex­er­cise.

Af­ter­wards a re­port was sub­mit­ted to Warn­er and Heer­ah by re­tired po­lice in­spec­tor Mervyn Cord­ner, who claimed he was re­called by Warn­er to head the NF­SIU. The re­port rec­om­mend­ed that sur­veil­lance equip­ment should be in­stalled close to the mar­i­jua­na fields, af­ter their de­struc­tion, to keep a watch on the area.

"The NFS team has ob­served that when these fields are de­stroyed and the of­fi­cers move out of the area, the fields are re­plant­ed. We can ac­quire tech­nol­o­gy to place cam­eras in the for­est to pho­to­graph and record the planters," the re­port point­ed out.Nei­ther NSOC di­rec­tor Heer­ah, who as­sist­ed with the rental of eight ve­hi­cles for the NF­SIU, nor Warn­er, who has since re­signed as na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, re­spond­ed to text mes­sages about the sur­veil­lance ex­er­cise.

And while act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams has dis­missed claims by Cord­ner that the NF­SIU helped po­lice in fight­ing crime, T&T Guardian in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue to re­veal oth­er­wise.Com­ment­ing briefly on the ex­er­cise last week, Cord­ner on­ly said: "Every­thing is go­ing to come out bit by bit, no mat­ter how Jack Warn­er tries to de­ny the ex­is­tence of the NF­SIU.

"We did not know when the erad­i­ca­tion ex­er­cise took place. We were not part of that ex­er­cise. We were part of the sur­veil­lance ex­er­cise and as­sist­ed in ob­tain­ing the in­for­ma­tion about the high-grade mar­i­jua­na fields in the east."He added: "There was much more sur­veil­lance work to be done but the po­lice act­ed quick­ly. The po­lice were in­formed of every­thing we did."

Cord­ner al­so re­it­er­at­ed that the NF­SIU was in­stru­men­tal in help­ing solve the mur­der of Chi­nese cou­ple Yang Jiang Hua and Wu Xia Hua, who were shot dead last Ju­ly at their fam­i­ly's home and busi­ness place, Tiger's Chi­nese Restau­rant, Cunu­pia.Cord­ner's claims are cor­rob­o­rat­ed by busi­ness­man Richard Koorn, own­er of Don­rich Se­cu­ri­ty Ken­nels, Fac­to­ry Road, Gold­en Grove, Arou­ca, where the NF­SIU op­er­at­ed for four months last year un­til be­ing shut down be­cause of lack of fund­ing.

The NF­SIU was re­port­ed­ly se­cret­ly re­vived in Ju­ly last year, months af­ter Warn­er sig­nalled his in­ten­tion to do so.The orig­i­nal Fly­ing Squad was first formed in the 1970s but was dis­band­ed in 1980 af­ter for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Ran­dolph Bur­roughs was charged with con­spir­a­cy to mur­der.Warn­er hint­ed at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of bring­ing back a "sani­tised ver­sion" of the squad last year but did not give a time frame.

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty has start­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the re­vival of the NF­SIU. State­ments have been tak­en from Cord­ner and sev­er­al oth­er NF­SIU mem­bers. Koorn is ex­pect­ed to meet with PCA of­fi­cials to re­late his in­volve­ment with the NF­SIU.