Busi­ness own­ers iden­ti­fied in a con­fi­den­tial po­lice re­port al­leged­ly linked to hu­man traf­fick­ing, drug smug­gling, gun-run­ning, and mon­ey laun­der­ing should be charged says co­or­di­na­tor of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers Jai Lelad­hars­ingh.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Lelad­hars­ingh said that he was sur­prised that the po­lice had not act­ed on the in­for­ma­tion sup­plied by the Spe­cial Branch.

As part of Guardian Me­dia in­ves­tiga­tive se­ries the Un­der­world Files the Sun­day Guardian high­light­ed sev­er­al busi­ness op­er­a­tors in South and Cen­tral and East Trinidad linked to or­gan­ised crime and pro­tect­ed by cor­rupt law en­force­ment of­fi­cers. The names and pho­tog­praphs of the busi­ness op­er­a­tors were omit­ted or con­cealed in the re­port. The re­port said the op­er­a­tors were us­ing their busi­ness­es as fronts to run hu­man traf­fick­ing and pros­ti­tu­tion rings.

The busi­ness op­er­a­tors are among 100 peo­ple of in­ter­est, in­clud­ing known gang lead­ers, iden­ti­fied in the 2019 re­port ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia. The play­ers, ac­cord­ing to the re­port, are re­spon­si­ble to the soar­ing mur­der rate and vi­o­lent crime which has seen over 300 peo­ple killed in the first sev­en months of this year.

“If there is in­for­ma­tion and ev­i­dence, the po­lice should not hes­i­tate to lay charges,” Lelad­hars­ingh said. He not­ed that gen­uine busi­ness peo­ple were fac­ing prob­lems be­cause of the mo­nop­oly of the crim­i­nal em­pire.

“Last week Wednes­day we had a meet­ing with the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and we ex­pressed con­cerns about crime. All we can say is we want the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to suc­ceed in ad­just­ing crime. He must find a way to act on this in­tel­li­gence. As the co­or­di­na­tor of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Cham­bers, I want all le­git­i­mate busi­ness peo­ple to work with the Com­mis­sion­er and the Gov­ern­ment to help re­duce this crime scourge,” he added.

Asked whether the al­le­ga­tions made in the Spe­cial Branch re­port had left a stain on the names of le­git­i­mate busi­ness own­ers, Lelad­hars­ingh said no.

“Crim­i­nals pos­ing as le­git­i­mate busi­ness peo­ple op­er­ate in a way that can hide their op­er­a­tion. What this spe­cial re­port by Mark Bas­sant has done is to ex­pose the crim­i­nals and bring their op­er­a­tions in­to the pub­lic space. Now that we have the in­tel­li­gence, the po­lice must act on it,” he added. He not­ed that this crim­i­nal en­ter­prise should be a source of con­cern for the en­tire coun­try.

Mean­while, pres­i­dent of the Cou­va/Point Lisas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce Ra­jbal Ram­c­hand Ma­haraj al­so said he was sur­prised that the po­lice had not yet act­ed on the re­port. He said busi­ness­peo­ple must col­lab­o­rate with the po­lice to find mean­ing­ful so­lu­tions to crime.

“If the po­lice have that in­for­ma­tion at hand then some sort of ac­tion should be tak­en. We al­so find it strange that over the years sev­er­al ma­jor drug busts have oc­curred in the West yet no men­tion was made about the crim­i­nals op­er­at­ing from the West. I think cer­tain peo­ple are be­ing pro­tect­ed,” Ma­haraj said.

For­mer pres­i­dent of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of Com­merce Richie Sookhai al­so said gen­uine busi­ness­peo­ple were find­ing it hard to com­pete on the mar­ket be­cause of the or­gan­ised crim­i­nal net­work which mo­nop­o­lis­es the mar­ket. He too called for charges to be laid against wrong­do­ers.