The Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty has is­sued 40 Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2026, re­sult­ing in the de­ten­tion of in­di­vid­u­als al­leged to be linked to or­gan­ised crim­i­nal net­works, gang lead­er­ship struc­tures and firearm-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The or­ders were is­sued be­tween March 18 and May 25, au­tho­ris­ing de­ten­tion at fa­cil­i­ties in­clud­ing the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre at San­ta Rosa, Ari­ma, the Re­mand Prison at Gold­en Grove, Arou­ca, and the Women’s Prison, where ap­plic­a­ble.

In each case, Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der de­ter­mined that de­ten­tion was nec­es­sary to pre­vent the in­di­vid­u­als from act­ing in a man­ner prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty, in ac­cor­dance with reg­u­la­tion 14 of the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2026, and pro­vi­sions of the An­ti-Gang Act, 2021.

The de­tainees are al­leged to be linked to mul­ti­ple or­gan­ised crim­i­nal groups op­er­at­ing across T&T, in­clud­ing the Alien/7 Gang, Trou Macaque Gang, 6 Gang, 7 Gang, Davis Street/9 Gang, Rat­ed R Gang, Ras­ta Gang, and the Bayshore 3 Gang, among oth­ers.

Au­thor­i­ties say the or­ders de­scribe in­di­vid­u­als op­er­at­ing in roles rang­ing from lead­ers and en­forcers to shoot­ers, dri­vers, stash men and lo­gis­ti­cal fa­cil­i­ta­tors.

The groups are al­leged to be in­volved in armed rob­bery, ex­tor­tion, firearms and nar­cotics traf­fick­ing, home in­va­sions, kid­nap­pings and mul­ti­ple homi­cides, with in­tel­li­gence ref­er­ences cit­ed in the or­ders point­ing to on­go­ing gang con­flicts marked by re­tal­ia­to­ry shoot­ings in pub­lic spaces. Sev­er­al de­tainees are al­so al­leged to have been in­volved in planned or im­mi­nent es­ca­la­tion of vi­o­lence us­ing high-pow­ered firearms.

The le­gal no­tices fur­ther ref­er­ence cross-com­mu­ni­ty ac­tiv­i­ty span­ning Laven­tille, Mor­vant, Bel­mont, Beetham Gar­dens, Port-of-Spain, Ari­ma, Ch­agua­nas, La Hor­quet­ta, Mara­bel­la, San Fer­nan­do and La Ro­maine, along­side al­leged co­or­di­na­tion through crim­i­nal as­so­ciates and, in some in­stances, prison-linked net­works fa­cil­i­tat­ing con­tra­band move­ment and con­tin­ued ex­ter­nal co­or­di­na­tion.

Among those de­tained are two women, Ty­ne­sha Manoram and Anasta­cia Her­nan­dez, who were iden­ti­fied with­in the group as part of the broad­er net­work of al­leged as­so­ciates un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Named in­di­vid­u­als de­tained un­der the se­ries of or­ders in­clude Gre­go­ry “Blac­ka” Bai­ley, Ish­ma­iah “Bun­jie/Bungie” Bel­grave, Nathaniel “Nat­ty” Mitchell, Leslie “Ali/Alie” Williams, Tyreek “Reek” Romeo, Chris Guy, Don­nell “Alion Don­hill” Collins, Ivan “Mook­ie” George, Kaleem “To­to/To­to Boy” Austin, Shawnde “Chucky/Shawnde Roberts” James, Shawn­del “Rampy” Sula­van, Shon­dell Lloyd, Ju­nior “Blacks” James, Neil “Sid­dique” Mitchell, Ac­k­eem “Bovi” Nel­son, Eli­jah “Scrooge/Scruge” Halls, An­cil “Ba­ka” Bish­op, At­ti­la “Tila/T” Phillip and Chris­t­ian “Red Ants” Hug­gins.

Each or­der fol­lows the le­gal frame­work un­der reg­u­la­tion 14 of the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2026, which al­lows for pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion where the min­is­ter is sat­is­fied that it is nec­es­sary to pre­vent threats to pub­lic safe­ty. The grounds con­sis­tent­ly cite con­fi­den­tial in­tel­li­gence, al­leged or­gan­ised crime mem­ber­ship, firearms ac­cess and in­volve­ment in vi­o­lent crim­i­nal en­ter­pris­es.

Au­thor­i­ties say the de­ten­tions are in­tend­ed to dis­rupt im­mi­nent threats, pre­vent re­tal­ia­to­ry vi­o­lence and dis­man­tle or­gan­ised crim­i­nal net­works op­er­at­ing across mul­ti­ple com­mu­ni­ties in T&T.