Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

In mid- Au­gust, parcels of co­caine be­gan wash­ing up in coastal vil­lages, with whis­pers of vil­lagers re­cov­er­ing the per­ilous, pre­cious pow­der spread­ing from house to house and vil­lage to vil­lage.

Last week, in Ma­yaro, po­lice re­cov­ered more than 46 kilo­grams of co­caine with a street val­ue of $21 mil­lion.

It is be­lieved that much more is out there, still un­ac­count­ed for. In many of the com­mu­ni­ties, ac­cord­ing to res­i­dents, armed men “from town” have at­tacked lo­cal deal­ers and vil­lagers in search of the drugs.

On Wednes­day, Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Ma­yaro, Man­zanil­la and Guayagua­yare. Every res­i­dent we spoke with said they were ter­ri­fied. They were al­so un­sat­is­fied with the po­lice pres­ence.

Res­i­dents of coastal com­mu­ni­ties stretch­ing from To­co in the north to Ga­le­o­ta Point in the south are par­a­lyzed with fear, as drug deal­ers and gang mem­bers scram­ble to re­cov­er co­caine from a ship­ment lost in the At­lantic Ocean.

“We hear­ing it have peo­ple com­ing up here, ter­ror­iz­ing peo­ple be­cause of this busi­ness. The gov­ern­ment has to do more to pro­tect the coun­try and the bor­ders from this kind of thing,” a Ma­yaro res­i­dent said.

“We are not feel­ing safe with this drug busi­ness, it’s killing go­ing on. You don’t know who could come by and who could in­ter­fere with you. I’m not feel­ing safe and I’m not feel­ing com­fort­able with it, and I wish that some­thing could be done, be­cause what I’m hear­ing is that it hap­pened all about and like peo­ple have it, and who have it, hide it and who have it wait­ing, and I don’t want any killing to take place around my area.

“I would like to have an in­creased po­lice pres­ence, even if it’s Army or Coast Guard, some­thing for the res­i­dents of Ma­yaro,” said an el­der­ly woman who lives op­po­site the Ma­yaro Recre­ation Ground.

As we drove aroung the com­mu­ni­ty, there was on­ly a hand­ful of pedes­tri­ans in sight. The po­lice pres­ence was light. One or two po­lice cars were seen dur­ing more than five hours of dri­ving. Wary eyes peeped through the blinds of shut win­dows, while every front door was closed. Typ­i­cal­ly, there’s a wel­com­ing at­mos­phere for vis­i­tors to Ma­yaro and Man­zanil­la, but in­stead, the mood was guard­ed and un­cer­tain. Ru­mours and eye­wit­ness ac­counts of vi­o­lence dom­i­nat­ed small talk in the few busy ar­eas.

“This is the talk of the whole town right now, from Guayagua­yare straight back to Man­zanil­la. It is un­safe. All those who are liv­ing close to the wa­ter­fronts fear for their lives be­cause it get­ting more and more dan­ger­ous be­cause peo­ple dy­ing al­ready. In Man­zanil­la, they have killed four peo­ple al­ready.

“Some of the peo­ple are be­ing blamed wrong­ful­ly. Some peo­ple get­ting licks wrong­ful­ly. They go­ing by word of mouth. If some­one says John get parcels, they will go by John just be­cause some­one said John got, and John doesn’t even know what’s go­ing on,” said a Guayagua­yare fish­er­man who asked Guardian Me­dia not to re­veal his iden­ti­ty or the com­mu­ni­ty he re­sides in.

Last week, the fish­er­man’s fam­i­ly saw sev­er­al heav­i­ly armed men in po­lice uni­forms chase two neigh­bours. The two men es­caped af­ter run­ning past their house and in­to the sea. The talk of the town is that the duo force­ful­ly took parcels from a vil­lager who col­lect­ed them from the shore. Word got out, so peo­ple came look­ing for them. There are sto­ries like these in al­most every coastal com­mu­ni­ty. Peo­ple are just hop­ing some­one doesn’t come look­ing for them, or some­one they know.

“How you will know who is the po­lice and who is the fake? Po­lice are sup­posed to be pass­ing and vis­it­ing the area reg­u­lar­ly. I say, at least, three to four times per day pass through, make sure every­body is safe, but they not do­ing that. The boy who died in the car park in Ari­ma. He died be­cause of that. Two peo­ple get chopped up on Man­zanil­la’s side. They beat them to a friz­zle. They were in crit­i­cal con­di­tion in the hos­pi­tal.

“You have to be care­ful be­cause they are still out and look­ing. Just two nights back, they jumped a drug lord’s yard. They jump his fence with a gun. They just look­ing. If you a man who sell in the area, they are com­ing for you,” the fish­er­man’s rel­a­tive said.

Res­i­dents: It’s not so straight­for­ward

The fall­out along the coast from the miss­ing co­caine ship­ment is a more lay­ered, com­plex is­sue than out­siders may as­sume. Per­haps the thick­est lay­er is the lev­el of pover­ty.

Just out­side of Ma­yaro MPRush­ton Paray’s of­fice on the junc­tion, a pholourie ven­dor spot­ted Guardian Me­dia’s cam­eras and be­gan com­plain­ing bit­ter­ly about her hard­ships.

“If some­body takes a gun and shoots me and kills me, it’s just like I will come out of all this trou­ble that I go­ing through right now,” she said.

“I have two chil­dren who come out of uni­ver­si­ty. One did bio­chem­istry and two years now, he ap­ply­ing all over the coun­try and he ain’t have a job right now. He can­not set up a house or a fam­i­ly. He’s 26.

“My daugh­ter just came out of uni­ver­si­ty. She has her Bach­e­lor’s and Mas­ter’s and is still un­em­ployed. And my last son go­ing to do med­i­cine. Look how hard I have to be work­ing. My hus­band not work­ing. I have to stand up in the hot sun to sell pholourie and pep­per roti to sur­vive to send my chil­dren to school. Right now, it is re­al­ly hard. It comes like I mind­ing my chil­dren back again like pri­ma­ry school chil­dren.”

Sev­er­al Ma­yaro res­i­dents said they un­der­stood why peo­pl risked pick­ing up a par­cel. Some ad­mit­ted they would have done the same.

Abu­dal Aww­al, who owns stalls on the junc­tion, said: “I don’t know the sit­u­a­tion the peo­ple (who took parcels) in. If you are liv­ing a life and you’re suf­fer­ing, go­ing through hard­ship all the time, and some­thing like that shows up, that is an op­por­tu­ni­ty. That is mon­ey. The con­se­quences don’t come to your mind then.

“You have to un­der­stand that it’s poor peo­ple you deal­ing with. If you are poor and you are hun­gry what con­se­quences are you study­ing? That is why there is so much crime in the coun­try, cause they are not study­ing con­se­quences. Peo­ple are hun­gry. When peo­ple are hun­gry, they will do all kinds of things to get mon­ey,” he said.

A short dis­tance away, Kesto, a fish­er­man from Guayagua­yare, said while he un­der­stood the temp­ta­tion, he would re­sist, giv­en the sto­ries and ac­counts of vi­o­lence.

“I am telling you, if I see one of the parcels here right now, I’m not touch­ing it be­cause I will feel like I go­ing to die.

“It have peo­ple who will take a chance to do it be­cause, at the end of the day, they don’t have noth­ing, no work, noth­ing be­cause we have a gov­ern­ment, they say­ing they will bless us with every­thing, but af­ter we vote, it’s a dif­fer­ent thing.

“So if a poor per­son like my­self sees drugs on the beach washed up, they will like­ly go and pick up . . . I will them car­ry it back. Yes, you find it, but it doesn’t make sense you find some­thing and you know it’s drugs, and your life is un­easy. Be­cause it’s not on­ly you, it’s your whole fam­i­ly un­easy, be­cause they might not get you, and they will go be­hind your fam­i­ly. So it’s bet­ter you see it and leave it alone,” he said.

Ke­ston re­called that many years ago that drugs washed up in Moru­ga where he worked at the time. The con­se­quence for peo­ple pick­ing up the drugs then was sim­i­lar, he re­mem­bered.

“I see peo­ple run­ning up and down with drugs and the man I was work­ing with told me don’t touch noth­ing. About five hours af­ter, I see a big maxi pull up with peo­ple from town. Peo­ple start to get beat up, peo­ple start to get shot be­hind. Thank God I was able to go on top of a lock­er and hide my­self,” he said.

MP: On­ly three ve­hi­cles to pa­trol

Ac­cord­ing to Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray, the fall­out from the co­caine ship­ment is symp­to­matic of big­ger is­sues. He claimed that there aren’t enough ves­sels and he­li­copters pa­trolling the coun­try’s bor­ders and the Ma­yaro Po­lice Sta­tion on­ly has three ve­hi­cles to cov­er 25 miles of coast­line.

“ There’s one (ve­hi­cle) for Court and Process, one (ve­hi­cle) for the Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment, and one for what­ev­er it is they have to do. What is hap­pen­ing to pa­trols? In the past, you had joint po­lice and sol­dier ex­er­cis­es from To­co to Man­zanil­la to Ga­le­o­ta Point. All of that has been washed away, so the drugs com­ing up on the seashore is just a symp­tom.

“The Ma­yaro Po­lice is do­ing the best that they can. All I can do as the MP is to call on the min­is­ter to give us the re­sources that we need, to get those boats out there and put the he­li­copters in the air to make a re­al at­tempt to put con­trol on the es­ca­lat­ing crime sit­u­a­tion in the coun­try,” Paray said.

The Op­po­si­tion MP ac­knowl­edged that there is un­ease in Ma­yaro at the mo­ment. He said he’s heard nu­mer­ous sto­ries of home in­va­sions linked to young men boast­ing of find­ing some of the parcels of co­caine.

“The ban­dits are brac­ing their homes, beat­ing the moth­ers and fa­thers, and search­ing for the drugs and some of these things are not be­ing re­port­ed to the po­lice be­cause what are you go­ing to tell the po­lice? That you picked up a block of co­caine and I have it in my home?

“There was one shoot­ing, one al­ter­ca­tion, be­tween the po­lice and a known drug deal­er last week, so I be­lieve that was one fa­tal­i­ty em­a­nat­ing out of this. So, it has the com­mu­ni­ty in a bit of fear, in terms of there’s this at­trac­tion for the bad el­e­ment to fo­cus on com­mu­ni­ties along the seashore,” he said.

Figueira: You don’t mess with these peo­ple

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Dau­rius Figueira, who has writ­ten on and done ex­ten­sive re­search on co­caine traf­fick­ing in the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca, said the Colom­bian-Caribbean or­ga­ni­za­tion re­spon­si­ble for the ship­ment is renowned for its vi­o­lence. He linked the in­crease in homi­cides in Au­gust to the lost ship­ment, say­ing the re­cent mur­ders were large­ly as a re­sult of the miss­ing co­caine.

“You don’t mess with these peo­ple. You don’t mess with these peo­ple who use that trade­mark (on their prod­uct). You have a death wish to go mess with them.

“They have to be fright­ened be­cause the word went around that they will kill every­body. You don’t even have to touch the prod­uct and you could pass in it be­cause it’s one set of old talk, and a man could lie on you and frame you. They (the car­tel) don’t check any­thing. They don’t seek a wit­ness to con­firm any­thing,” Figueira warned.

He said it is very like­ly that the vi­o­lence linked to the ship­ment will con­tin­ue. Com­mu­ni­ties along the east coast have every right to be ter­ri­fied, he added.

“You will al­ways get a feed­ing fren­zy that will re­sult in one set of vi­o­lence, so those who want to go with these peo­ple’s prod­uct, they al­ways find out what go­ing on when time comes and they of­fer it for sale. Man does be sell­ing them out and even though they may be ly­ing on them, the Colom­bians don’t care,” he said.

The crim­i­nol­o­gist said it’s not a guar­an­tee that the ves­sel car­ry­ing the ship­ment over­turned by it­self. It could have been as a re­sult of gun fight out at sea, es­pe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing there is an on­go­ing car­tel war. The drugs may have al­so been tied to a GPS buoy but got car­ried away with the tide.

“How the Colom­bians op­er­ate is they will have a don in charge of that op­er­a­tion and when loss­es oc­cur, that will hit the don’s or­ga­ni­za­tion. So that’s why the word has spread that they are look­ing for their prod­uct and the fact of the mat­ter is they have start­ed killing. And there are one set of bot­tom feed­ers who have run in too, who pick­ing up ki­los and get killed too.

“If what they de­scrib­ing is true, the ship­ment would have come from a moth­er ship and that is why they so para­noid be­cause that is more load than any oth­er go-fast boat,” he said.

CoP: Mea­sures in­ten­si­fied in re­sponse

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher said East­ern Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers have un­der­tak­en an­ti-crime mea­sures con­sis­tent with the TTPS’ Vi­o­lent Crime Re­duc­tion Plans in re­sponse to the re­cent drug find in the Guayagua­yare dis­trict. She said the mea­sures have been in­ten­si­fied in re­sponse to con­cerns by res­i­dents and re­cent in­ci­dents in the dis­trict.

“Of­fi­cers of the Ma­yaro Po­lice Sta­tion, Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment Task Force and Emer­gency Re­sponse Pa­trol (ERP) have been con­duct­ing var­i­ous in­tel­li­gence-led ex­er­cis­es in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the In­ter-Agency Task Force and the Ca­nine Branch with the aim of keep­ing the Di­vi­sion safe and se­cure. Spe­cial­ist in­ves­tiga­tive as­sis­tance is pro­vid­ed by coun­ter­parts from the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Re­gion Two and the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit.

“Fur­ther dis­cus­sions are un­der­way by Snr Supt Ryan Khan to have per­son­nel of the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force as­sist with pa­trols. Snr Supt Khan is al­so su­per­vis­ing ex­er­cis­es in­ves­ti­gat­ing re­cent re­ports of rob­bery with ag­gra­va­tion, rob­bery with vi­o­lence and as­sault with in­tent to rob,” Com­mis­sion­er Hare­wood-Cristo­pher said.

She added that a Vi­o­lent Re­duc­tion Plan has been im­ple­ment­ed in the East­ern Di­vi­sion with spe­cif­ic fo­cus on dis­man­tling crim­i­nal gangs, seiz­ing il­le­gal firearms and tack­ling transna­tion­al or­ga­nized crime. Reg­u­lar pa­trols are tak­ing place in polic­ing dis­tricts with the as­sis­tance of ERP units, as well as oth­er land, air and sea re­sources that are avail­able up­on re­quest.

“I am aware that re­cent ex­er­cis­es have re­sult­ed in the seizure of a sub-ma­chine gun, a re­volver, sev­er­al mag­a­zines, quan­ti­ties of as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion, quan­ti­ties of il­le­gal cig­a­rettes, al­co­hol and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and the re­cov­ery of one mo­tor-ve­hi­cle.

“One man, Kelvin Tor­res aka ‘Fish’ was al­so ar­rest­ed and charged in con­nec­tion with the mur­der of San­gre Grande farmer Stephen Ju­ri, which oc­curred on Au­gust 21,” the CoP said.

- With ad­di­tion­al re­port­ing by Kellyann Lemessy