An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Hay­den Forde has ad­mit­ted it is “very alarm­ing and con­cern­ing” that prison of­fi­cers con­tin­ue to en­gage in the smug­gling of con­tra­band in­to the na­tion’s pris­ons.

This, de­spite reg­u­lar search­es and re­peat­ed warn­ings by both prison and po­lice of­fi­cials that any­one caught would face the full brunt of the law.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions by Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing the ar­rest of a 31-year-old prison of­fi­cer yes­ter­day morn­ing dur­ing a co­or­di­nat­ed mul­ti-agency raid at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) in Arou­ca, Forde re­in­forced his ear­ly promise to “Lock them up with their friends.”

The of­fi­cer, who has four years of ser­vice and was at­tached to the MSP, was held around 8 am as he ar­rived for work on No­vem­ber 12, af­ter a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na and cig­a­rettes was found strapped to his body, along with 15 ra­zor blades stashed in his wal­let.

Sub­se­quent search­es of his car al­so turned up ad­di­tion­al con­tra­band, while of­fi­cers were al­so ex­pect­ed to search his home.

This is the first prison of­fi­cer to be ar­rest­ed since the State of Emer­gency (SoE) be­gan on Ju­ly 18, in con­nec­tion with the smug­gling of con­tra­band in­to the prison.

A se­nior prison of­fi­cial who was de­tained via a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) cur­rent­ly re­mains in cus­tody at the Teteron Bar­racks in Ch­aguara­mas.

Forde said Wednes­day’s raid was co­or­di­nat­ed by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro and Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er of Op­er­a­tions, Suzette Mar­tin, along with him­self.

A team of of­fi­cers from the Guard and Emer­gency Branch, the DCP Op­er­a­tions Team, In­tel­li­gence Units, and the Prison Ser­vice Tac­ti­cal Re­sponse Unit, led by ASP Stan­ley and Cor­po­rals Williams and Hyde, con­duct­ed ran­dom search­es of prison of­fi­cers ar­riv­ing for du­ty at the MSP.

Dur­ing the ex­er­cise, the prison of­fi­cer was searched, and two vac­u­um-sealed bags of mar­i­jua­na and one vac­u­um-sealed bag con­tain­ing 69 Broad­way cig­a­rettes were found strapped to his body, while 15 As­tra ra­zor blades were found hid­den in his wal­let.

A search of the of­fi­cer’s car lat­er turned up ad­di­tion­al con­tra­band, in­clud­ing a clear plas­tic bag con­tain­ing a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na, two dig­i­tal scales, sev­er­al cig­a­rette lighters, one pair of scis­sors, two mem­o­ry cards, one pack of wrap­ping pa­per, and two im­i­ta­tion firearms.

The nar­cotics were lat­er weighed and amount­ed to 300 grammes.

Fol­low­ing the ar­rest, Forde said, “It is very alarm­ing and con­cern­ing that some of­fi­cers con­tin­ue to in­tro­duce con­tra­band in­to our pris­ons.”

And he promised, “I can as­sure the pub­lic that all such of­fi­cers will be locked in cells with their gang af­fil­i­ates or any oth­er in­mates un­til they are bailed, or their mat­ters are de­ter­mined by the court.”

Forde again warned, “We con­tin­ue to search for il­le­gal items, and we are re­mov­ing them.”

Pressed to say where the of­fi­cer would be housed, the act­ing prison boss said, “He will be in the sec­tion des­ig­nat­ed for re­mand­ed in­mates. Once he comes in­to prison, he will be a re­mand­ed in­mate.”

Mar­tin said, “The ex­er­cise forms part of on­go­ing in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions ini­ti­at­ed un­der the di­rec­tive of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons to en­sure the safe­ty, se­cu­ri­ty, and in­tegri­ty of the pe­nal sys­tem.”

She con­firmed, “Dur­ing to­day’s search, of­fi­cers seized sev­er­al pro­hib­it­ed items, in­clud­ing mo­bile phones, im­pro­vised weapons, charg­ers, and small quan­ti­ties of il­lic­it sub­stances.”

“In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing in­to the source of these items and any links to crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties out­side the in­sti­tu­tions.”