Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

Two peo­ple ac­cused of op­er­at­ing a hu­man traf­fick­ing net­work in To­ba­go are among the lat­est in­di­vid­u­als placed un­der Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) dur­ing the State of Emer­gency.

Ac­cord­ing to de­ten­tion or­ders pub­lished in the Le­gal No­tices, au­thor­i­ties al­lege that Fran­cis Car­oli­na Ren­gel Oje­da and Da­mon Domon­ic Charles played key roles in an or­gan­ised traf­fick­ing net­work that moved vul­ner­a­ble Latin Amer­i­can women be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go for sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion.

The or­der against Ren­gel Oje­da al­leges that she was a se­nior fa­cil­i­ta­tor who re­cruit­ed women, re­ceived them up­on ar­rival in Trinidad, trans­port­ed them be­tween the is­lands, act­ed as a trans­la­tor for the crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tion and fa­cil­i­tat­ed their con­tin­ued sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion for fi­nan­cial gain.

Au­thor­i­ties al­so al­lege that she con­tin­ued the op­er­a­tion af­ter re­lo­cat­ing it to To­ba­go, re­mained in Trinidad and To­ba­go de­spite a de­por­ta­tion or­der, and main­tained links with oth­er fa­cil­i­ta­tors.

Charles, of Par­latu­vi­er, To­ba­go, is ac­cused of act­ing as a prin­ci­pal han­dler, trans­porter and fa­cil­i­ta­tor with­in the same al­leged traf­fick­ing net­work.

The de­ten­tion or­der al­leges that he re­ceived and housed traf­ficked vic­tims sent from Trinidad, trans­port­ed them to lo­ca­tions where they were sex­u­al­ly ex­ploit­ed, and used com­mer­cial premis­es as op­er­a­tional hubs.

Au­thor­i­ties al­so al­lege that he was as­so­ci­at­ed with oth­ers in­volved in the traf­fick­ing en­ter­prise and could in­ter­fere with wit­ness­es and on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions if left at lib­er­ty.

The lat­est Gazette al­so in­cludes a de­ten­tion or­der for Vaugh­ns Tay­lor, al­so known as “Stretch”, of Black Rock, To­ba­go.

Au­thor­i­ties al­lege that Tay­lor is an ac­tive mem­ber of an or­gan­ised crime group in­volved in vi­o­lent rob­beries, break-ins, lar­ce­ny and wit­ness in­tim­i­da­tion.

The Gazette fur­ther con­tains de­ten­tion or­ders for Dor­nelle ZJ Maraj; Kir­shawn Pe­gus, al­so known as “Crash”; Ja­maly Fari, al­so known as “Fari”; Pe­dro David Williams, al­so known as “Span­ish” or “Bap­tiste”; Stephen Lopez, al­so known as “Yan­kee”; and Ron­dell Fer­gu­son.

The in­di­vid­u­als are ac­cused of in­volve­ment in or­gan­ised crim­i­nal groups or vi­o­lent of­fences.