JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter-In­ves­tiga­tive

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Be­fore be­ing con­vict­ed for hu­man traf­fick­ing, An­tho­ny Michael Smith was a busi­ness­man who op­er­at­ed sev­er­al bars and had a few run-ins with the law.

On No­vem­ber 3, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds con­grat­u­lat­ed the po­lice and the Ju­di­cia­ry for their great ef­fort in ar­rest­ing, charg­ing and, in ab­sen­tia, con­vict­ing him in con­nec­tion with of­fences he com­mit­ted against a 16-year-old girl.

Smith be­came the coun­try’s first con­vict­ed hu­man traf­fick­er be­fore van­ished in Sep­tem­ber af­ter break­ing free of his an­kle mon­i­tor. He was sen­tenced to 15 years in prison. Hinds hoped the coun­try’s Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons (TIP) stand­ing, which was on the edge of be­ing down­grad­ed to a black­list­ing, would be bright­ened with his sen­tenc­ing.

But who is An­tho­ny Smith, who is known as Frank?

With lit­tle to no in­for­ma­tion avail­able on him out­side of the me­dia re­ports and po­lice in­for­ma­tion say­ing he was born at the Mt Hope Hos­pi­tal to Trevor and Jacque­line Smith on June 10, 1985, Smith ap­pears to be a ghost.

His girl­friend for the past two years on Mon­day de­scribed the 38-year-old as an “ab­solute­ly won­der­ful per­son” and dis­put­ed the com­ments be­ing made about him.

Guardian Me­dia tried to trace Smith’s tracks and vis­it­ed the last two known ad­dress­es for him, search­ing for some­one who could speak to his char­ac­ter and back­ground.

At the Tu­na­puna ad­dress giv­en for his par­ents, we were told nei­ther he nor his fam­i­ly lived there.

A woman, who ap­peared up­set at our pres­ence, said, “He used to live low­er down the road.”

No one else in the area knew Smith’s name or recog­nised his face from the po­lice want­ed poster.

At a Bam­boo Vil­lage, Val­sayn ad­dress, a woman said she had no idea who he was, while a young man said he was not from the area and was vis­it­ing his fa­ther. Busi­ness­men who live and work near­by al­so said they did not recog­nise Smith’s face and his name did not sound fa­mil­iar to them..

Known to po­lice since 2004

In­for­ma­tion from the po­lice ser­vice showed Smith was first charged in 2012 for sell­ing al­co­hol with­out a li­cence and was fined $5,000 or, in de­fault, six months in jail. That year, aris­ing out of the same in­ci­dent, he was charged with aid­ing and abet­ting in lewd and sug­ges­tive danc­ing and sen­tenced to three months hard labour.

By then, po­lice had him on their data­base as a “known of­fend­er” who was a busi­ness­man/bar op­er­a­tor.

Four years be­fore the 2012 mat­ter, Smith was charged with house­break­ing and lar­ce­ny and a Tu­na­puna mag­is­trate dis­missed the case. Four years be­fore that, in 2004, he was charged with lar­ce­ny and placed on a $10,000 bond by a Port-of-Spain mag­is­trate to keep the peace for two years.

Be­tween 2012 and 2016, Smith did not have the at­ten­tion of the po­lice and had no run-ins with law en­force­ment, not even a traf­fic vi­o­la­tion. Then in 2016, he was slapped with 21 charges: 13 for sex­u­al­ly pen­e­trat­ing a child, which was al­leged to have hap­pened be­tween Jan­u­ary 31 and April 1, 2015; three charges of caus­ing and invit­ing a child to be­come a pros­ti­tute; four charges of com­mon as­sault against a child and one of re­cruit­ing a child for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing.

At a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty news con­fer­ence last Fri­day, the me­dia was told Smith was ini­tial­ly charged with 26 of­fences, in­clud­ing 17 for sex­u­al­ly pen­e­trat­ing a child, five for child pros­ti­tu­tion, three charges of as­sault and one charge of re­cruit­ing a child for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing. The sex­u­al charges were dropped by the time the mat­ter reached the High Court and one month be­fore he was found guilty, he ab­scond­ed.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day, Smith’s present girl­friend - who asked not to be named - said she does not be­lieve he re­moved his an­kle mon­i­tor. In­stead, she sus­pect­ed he could have been ab­duct­ed.

In a me­dia re­lease hours af­ter the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry spoke about the mat­ter, the Ju­di­cia­ry said

the 16-year-old, who was forced by Smith in­to pros­ti­tu­tion, saw a po­lice of­fi­cer as her fi­nal “client.”

The Ju­di­cia­ry al­so di­rect­ed the Reg­is­trar of the High Court to for­ward a copy of the tran­script of the case to the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) for them to in­ves­ti­gate the claim.

Days lat­er, in a ra­dio in­ter­view, Hinds as­sured that no stone would be left un­turned in in­ves­ti­gat­ing the claims.

The US TIP Re­port has re­peat­ed­ly high­light­ed and in­di­cat­ed the in­volve­ment of State of­fi­cials in hu­man traf­fick­ing and that a fail­ure to con­vict any­one of the of­fence, were rea­sons for the coun­try re­ceiv­ing Tier 2 Watch List sta­tus for two con­sec­u­tive years. Ow­ing on­ly to a one-time waiv­er, the coun­try was not down­grad­ed and black­list­ed af­ter re­ceiv­ing its third con­sec­u­tive Watch List sta­tus ear­li­er this year.

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty has ini­ti­at­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the po­lice of­fi­cer’s in­volve­ment in the mat­ter.

Any­one who has in­for­ma­tion on Smith is asked to con­tact the po­lice. The TTPS said Smith is 5’7 inch­es tall, medi­um built, 141 pounds and brown in com­plex­ion. He has a pug nose, healthy teeth and “bat ears” with a scar on his fore­head. Po­lice said Smith has tat­toos on his right arm, hand, left arm, hand, left fin­gers and neck. The po­lice did not de­scribe the tat­toos.