News Desk

Al­most two weeks af­ter po­lice first raid­ed the Drugs Sou-Sou head­quar­ters in La Hor­quet­ta, own­er Ker­ron Clarke reached out to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith through a con­fi­den­tial in­for­mant ask­ing for asy­lum for him­self and his fam­i­ly and im­mu­ni­ty in ex­change for ex­pos­ing crooked po­lice of­fi­cers and sol­diers who have been in­volved in DSS op­er­a­tions.

Re­spond­ing to claims in an­oth­er dai­ly news­pa­per, Grif­fith said, "He asked to meet with on­ly me and want­ed to give in­for­ma­tion on rogue po­lice of­fi­cers and sol­diers. He asked for im­mu­ni­ty and I in­di­cat­ed to him that I would have to dis­cuss with the DPP. He said then that his life was threat­ened."

Grif­fith said be­fore he left the coun­try on va­ca­tion, Clarke had agreed to meet with him and hand over cru­cial in­for­ma­tion that could link crooked law en­force­ment per­son­nel in­volved in the DSS in­ves­ti­ga­tion. On the evening of the meet­ing, how­ev­er, Clarke can­celled on him.

"He had planned to hand over CDs and record­ings and oth­er in­for­ma­tion about the po­lice of­fi­cers and sol­diers with DSS and that same night a le­gal of­fi­cer from the De­fence Force met with him and for three hours they spent speak­ing to him and caused him to change his mind."

The con­fi­den­tial in­for­mant, whom Guardian Me­dia was in touch with sev­er­al times, said he and Clarke met there­after and Clarke gave him (in­for­mant) a doc­u­ment that was lat­er giv­en to Grif­fith. The in­for­mant sent us sev­er­al screen grabs of con­ver­sa­tions he had been hav­ing with Clarke on this mat­ter.

"On that doc­u­ment, he gave all the names of the po­lice of­fi­cers and sol­diers as well as a for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter and two sit­tings MPs that had some in­volve­ment in putting mon­ey in­to the DSS," Grif­fith re­vealed.

"Clarke want­ed to see me and any ev­i­dence that he gave to me, I was giv­ing it to the UK and Ba­jan in­ves­ti­ga­tors and not to the TTPS di­rect­ly. In fact, he was will­ing to give as much in­for­ma­tion as pos­si­ble."

Grif­fith, who was speak­ing a day af­ter of­fi­cers raid­ed the DSS op­er­a­tions a sec­ond time and seized cash, re­ceipt books and oth­er doc­u­ments, said this ap­proach was nec­es­sary since on­ly re­cent­ly they found out that two for­mer Deputy Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice were al­so in­volved.

"We have phone records and oth­er in­for­ma­tion where these se­nior of­fi­cers were speak­ing to the of­fi­cers at the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion when the mon­ey came in on Tues­day, Sep­tem­ber 21 and when it was lat­er re­leased. At no time was the Com­mis­sion­er told about these con­ver­sa­tions."

Grif­fith clar­i­fied that dur­ing a What­sApp meet­ing on Oc­to­ber 19, and not Oc­to­ber 21 as re­port­ed by an­oth­er dai­ly, he did in­di­cate he was not con­cerned with peo­ple putting mon­ey in­to DSS at that point but rather how peo­ple were re­ceiv­ing mon­ey and those of­fi­cers who were work­ing with him who were fac­ing dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion as they had no per­mis­sion to "moon­light."

"I al­so want­ed the names of of­fi­cers who were putting mon­ey in­to DSS," Grif­fith said.

Grif­fith added, "If some­one is a money­len­der, that peo­ple who de­cide to in­vest mon­ey in some­thing, that is not a crime. Even when they went to To­ba­go, the po­lice could not have ar­rest­ed or stopped that ac­tiv­i­ty but we could on­ly dis­perse the crowd based on the COVID-19 reg­u­la­tions.

“So peo­ple who want to in­vest mon­ey, that is not a crime. The Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er con­tin­ues to say you can­not po­lice stu­pid­i­ty. If peo­ple want to in­vest mon­ey and there is a very good chance of a pyra­mid scheme that is go­ing to col­lapse and peo­ple lose their mon­ey, that is when the po­lice could get in­volved, be­cause that is when fraud could take place. It's when peo­ple de­cide to in­vest mon­ey and do not get their re­turns. When peo­ple are in­vest­ing mon­ey and are get­ting mon­ey at the top of the pyra­mid, that ob­vi­ous­ly will not be a crime. How­ev­er, there are oth­er mat­ters that are be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed, such as how the mon­ey is be­ing re­ceived. If it is that the prof­it is through il­le­gal means and if it is that the per­son that is in­volved has the doc­u­men­ta­tion to be a mon­ey lender."

Dur­ing the meet­ing on Oc­to­ber 19, Clarke ad­mit­ted to Grif­fith that he had been pay­ing sev­er­al po­lice of­fi­cers and sol­diers and al­so that rogue el­e­ments had al­so in­vest­ed in DSS, "but they don't come them­selves."

Clarke said there were mul­ti­ple names and men­tioned at least one of the names. Clarke claimed he was un­aware the po­lice of­fi­cers need­ed per­mis­sion from the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er be­fore they could "moon­light" for him in any ca­pac­i­ty. Grif­fith clar­i­fied too that this was a breach of po­lice reg­u­la­tions.

Grif­fith said he a feel­ing the con­ver­sa­tion was be­ing taped and said when Clarke raised the mat­ter of his pend­ing FUL li­cense, he gave him a frank enough re­sponse.

Clarke re­port­ed­ly said he was a walk­ing tar­get be­cause every­one be­lieves he has mon­ey and in­di­cat­ed the ap­pli­ca­tion was pend­ing for close to four years.

"I said clear­ly that would not be con­sid­ered at this time as he is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed. When this is closed his ap­pli­ca­tion would be con­sid­ered. He asked for asy­lum be­cause of po­lice and TTDF in­volve­ment and this is why he want­ed the firearm," Grif­fith said in a re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia via What­sApp ear­ly Wednes­day.

On the urg­ing of the con­fi­den­tial source, Clarke promised to fur­nish the in­for­ma­tion to Grif­fith’s email ad­dress, which was to be pro­vid­ed to him by a Guardian Me­dia in­ves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist. To date, Grif­fith said he had not re­ceived any email from Clarke.

The con­fi­den­tial in­for­mant then con­tact­ed Clarke via phone, added the in­ves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist, who then added Grif­fith in a four-way call in which Clarke and Grif­fith spoke for the ma­jor­i­ty of the time to or­gan­ise the pass­ing on of the in­for­ma­tion. Clarke even­tu­al­ly agreed to send vi­tal in­for­ma­tion to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion but is yet to do so.

Guardian Me­dia asked ques­tions through the con­fi­den­tial in­for­mant about why Clarke would re­nege on the agree­ment af­ter in­sist­ing on call­ing the meet­ing with Grif­fith to do so. Clarke re­port­ed­ly told the source that "he was fed up and all he want­ed now was his FUL."

Grif­fith said there is al­so an ac­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion in which a se­nior mem­ber of the DSS sent some­one to an of­fi­cer in­di­cat­ing that they were will­ing to pay up to $175,000 to fast track a FUL re­quest.