Ryan Ba­choo

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) has com­mend­ed the An­ti-Il­lic­it Trade Task Force (AIT­TF), pri­vate sec­tor bod­ies as well as law en­force­ment of­fi­cers on their con­tin­ued ef­forts to com­bat il­lic­it trade in the do­mes­tic sec­tor. How­ev­er, the body says more col­lab­o­ra­tion is need­ed in the fight.

A state­ment on Mon­day said, "De­spite the seizures that have hap­pened over the past cou­ple of months, the im­pli­ca­tions of the crime con­tin­ue to af­fect le­git­i­mate busi­ness op­er­a­tors and the safe­ty and well-be­ing of the cit­i­zen­ry at large."

The TTMA says this type of crime in­volves coun­ter­feit­ing, tax eva­sion, and the smug­gling of con­sumer prod­ucts. The items that are pri­mar­i­ly sus­cep­ti­ble to the trade are high­ly tax­able com­modi­ties such as to­bac­co, al­co­hol, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, de­sign­er ap­par­el and footwear, just to name a few.

"Re­search shows that it al­so has link­ages to mon­ey laun­der­ing, hu­man traf­fick­ing, the un­scrupu­lous im­por­ta­tion of arms and am­mu­ni­tion and even ter­ror­ist fi­nanc­ing in some in­stances," the state­ment read.

The As­so­ci­a­tion be­lieves that the lack of re­sources re­mains a crit­i­cal hin­drance in ac­cel­er­at­ing the fight against crime. Law en­force­ment of­fi­cers are faced with solv­ing the up­surge in mur­ders, car theft, house-break­ing and rob­beries in ad­di­tion to or­gan­ised crime of this kind. Our porous bor­ders ac­cel­er­ate the is­sue even fur­ther, more so with the traf­fick­ing of drugs, weapons and peo­ple.

It says col­lab­o­ra­tion is crit­i­cal in bat­tling crime.