To­ba­go po­lice have re­moved 13 il­le­gal firearms worth over half a mil­lion from the streets in the first nine months of 2025.

Da­ta shared with Guardian Me­dia showed the weapons are worth an es­ti­mat­ed $618,000 on the black mar­ket.

The cache in­cludes Glock and Beretta pis­tols, Tau­rus and Sar­sil­maz hand­guns, two AR-15 ri­fles, a MAC-10 sub­ma­chine gun, along with mag­a­zines and am­mu­ni­tion.

The to­tal is high­er than the TT$400,000 worth of firearms seized for the same pe­ri­od in 2024.

Last year’s haul was made up main­ly of pis­tols. This year, in ad­di­tion to pis­tols, the re­cov­ery in­clud­ed as­sault ri­fles and a sub­ma­chine gun, push­ing the to­tal val­ue above the pre­vi­ous year.

Snr Supt Earl Elie said the seizures are im­por­tant but wor­ries that il­le­gal guns re­main the main weapon used in killings on the is­land.

“We’ve re­cov­ered a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of weapons, in­clud­ing ri­fles and a sub­ma­chine gun, and that is a se­ri­ous con­cern for us in To­ba­go. The mur­der toll is down to five com­pared to twen­ty-four last year, but every killing so far was still com­mit­ted with a gun. That tells us the fight is far from over.”

Fig­ures from the TTPS showed that be­tween Jan­u­ary and Sep­tem­ber 2024, To­ba­go record­ed 24 mur­ders, with more than 95 per­cent in­volv­ing firearms.

Ju­ly and Au­gust 2024 were the blood­i­est months, with six and five killings.

The is­land al­so record­ed its first quadru­ple mur­der in Ju­ly. For the same pe­ri­od in 2025, the is­land has record­ed five mur­ders, all of them by gun.

While the num­ber is low­er, the con­sis­tent use of firearms high­lights the on­go­ing prob­lem. Po­lice re­ports note that hand­guns con­tin­ue to be the most com­mon re­cov­ery.

How­ev­er, the ad­di­tion of two AR-15 ri­fles and a sub­ma­chine gun this year in To­ba­go shows that high­er-pow­ered weapons are al­so reach­ing the is­land.

Elie said tak­ing them off the streets re­duces the risk of fur­ther vi­o­lence.

“We will con­tin­ue to fo­cus on in­tel­li­gence-led polic­ing, road­blocks, and tar­get­ed op­er­a­tions, be­cause every gun we take off the street is one less fam­i­ly fac­ing the pain of gun vi­o­lence.”

In 2024, To­ba­go faced one of its blood­i­est years in re­cent times. In con­trast, 2025 has seen few­er mur­ders to date and a larg­er over­all val­ue of firearms seized.

Elie cred­it­ed pa­trols, road­blocks, and tar­get­ed op­er­a­tions for the in­crease in gun re­cov­er­ies.

With four months left in the year, he said the fo­cus will re­main on seiz­ing more il­le­gal firearms and pre­vent­ing fur­ther blood­shed.

So far, po­lice have re­cov­ered 13 il­le­gal firearms in To­ba­go for 2025, com­pared with 10 for the same pe­ri­od in 2024.