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Saturday, July 26, 2025

UK, Bajan cops co-ordinate 2nd DSS raid

by

Mark Bassant
1732 days ago
20201028
An screenshot of an Instagram feed from DSS owner Kerron Clarke showing officers going through documents at his La Horquetta operation yesterday.

An screenshot of an Instagram feed from DSS owner Kerron Clarke showing officers going through documents at his La Horquetta operation yesterday.

Lead Ed­i­tor, In­ves­tiga­tive Desk

Five weeks af­ter po­lice first raid­ed the Drugs Sou-Sou (DSS) head­quar­ters in La Hor­quet­ta, of­fi­cers of the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau and Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch re­turned to the venue yes­ter­day and seized mil­lions of dol­lars, sev­er­al re­ceipt books and oth­er doc­u­ments as they in­ten­si­fied their in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the mat­ter.

This time, how­ev­er, the two Ba­jan po­lice of­fi­cers and one UK in­ves­ti­ga­tor now here on the in­vi­ta­tion of the Gov­ern­ment to as­sist of­fi­cers in the case, were in­stru­men­tal in co-or­di­nat­ing the op­er­a­tion, ac­cord­ing to Ag Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob.

“They were some­what of the brain­child in this op­er­a­tion, though they were not there phys­i­cal­ly,” Ja­cob told Guardian Me­dia hours af­ter the raid.

Ques­tioned about the UK in­ves­ti­ga­tor’s ar­rival in T&T, since this was not re­vealed be­fore, Ja­cob con­firmed one of them was al­ready here and on the ground.

Police officers pack documents into their vehicle after a raid on DSS' office on Kathleen Warner Drive, La Horquetta, yesterday.

Police officers pack documents into their vehicle after a raid on DSS' office on Kathleen Warner Drive, La Horquetta, yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

“He came just af­ter the of­fi­cers from Bar­ba­dos ar­rived and has been help­ing since then,” Ja­cob said.

Asked about the ar­rival of the oth­er UK in­ves­ti­ga­tors, Ja­cob said they were cur­rent­ly as­sist­ing “vir­tu­al­ly.”

Guardian Me­dia was told that a Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau team un­der Sgt Sil­ver re­turned to the house where DSS op­er­ates, along Kath­leen Warn­er Dri­ve, Phase One, La Hor­quet­ta, short­ly af­ter 10.30 am yes­ter­day. They lat­er called in mem­bers of the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch to as­sist af­ter mon­ey was re­cov­ered. The of­fi­cers, armed with the ap­pro­pri­ate war­rants, spent close to four and a half hours at the house and seized mil­lions in cash, hun­dreds of re­ceipt books, doc­u­ments con­tain­ing line pay­ments to thou­sands of in­di­vid­u­als and oth­er rel­e­vant doc­u­ments.

The cash, seized un­der the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act, was se­cured by Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch of­fi­cers and tak­en away to be checked and prop­er­ly ver­i­fied. This was done to pre­vent what oc­curred five weeks ago, when mon­ey a pur­port­ed­ly $22 mil­lion seized at the site was tak­en to the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion, on­ly to be re­turned to DSS head Ker­ron Clarke mere hours lat­er by ju­nior cops at the sta­tion unau­tho­rised to do so be­fore the amount and source of the funds could be ver­i­fied.

A police officer cautions members of the public as the walk by the DSS office on Kathleen Warner Drive, La Horquetta, during a raid on the compound yesterday.

A police officer cautions members of the public as the walk by the DSS office on Kathleen Warner Drive, La Horquetta, during a raid on the compound yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

The re­turn of the seized mon­ey to Clarke dur­ing the first raid on Sep­tem­ber 21 trig­gered a ma­jor in­ves­ti­ga­tion by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith with the help of the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau and Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch. This af­ter one mem­ber of the raid­ing unit was caught on video al­leged­ly stuff­ing mon­ey in­to his uni­form and oth­er TTPS and De­fence Force mem­bers were named as af­fil­i­ates of the DSS op­er­a­tion who were paid to pro­tect its op­er­a­tions. Four cops were sus­pend­ed and 10 oth­ers trans­ferred dur­ing the ear­ly stages of the probe by Grif­fith, who is ex­pect­ed back from va­ca­tion in Ire­land on the week­end.

Ja­cob, who is over­see­ing all the probes in Grif­fith’s ab­sence, yes­ter­day con­firmed they want­ed to con­firm the fig­ure this time be­fore iden­ti­fy­ing the quan­ti­ty.

“It is mil­lions, so the FIB has to count the mon­ey, so we can­not say at this point the ex­act sum,” he said.

Ja­cob ac­knowl­edged that the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch and Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau were work­ing to­geth­er in the DSS in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which is not on­ly look­ing at why po­lice of­fi­cers re­leased the seized mon­ey in the first raid be­fore it was count­ed but the TTDF mem­ber ac­cused of theft dur­ing the raid. Added to this, Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch in­ves­ti­ga­tors are still try­ing to piece to­geth­er the DSS’ source of funds and are trac­ing com­plex fi­nan­cial trails and bank­ing trans­ac­tions as­so­ci­at­ed with sev­er­al banks dur­ing their in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Members of the public look on during the police exercise at the Drugs Sou Sou headquarters on Kathleen Warner Drive, La Horquetta, yesterday.

Members of the public look on during the police exercise at the Drugs Sou Sou headquarters on Kathleen Warner Drive, La Horquetta, yesterday.

ABNRAHAM DIAZ

A se­nior in­ves­ti­ga­tor told Guardian Me­dia that dur­ing yes­ter­day’s op­er­a­tion, Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau of­fi­cers called in the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch af­ter dis­cov­er­ing close to $6 mil­lion in cash on the premis­es. The mon­ey was tak­en to the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain and Clarke, along with lawyer Sio Sookdeo, ac­com­pa­nied them there, where the mon­ey was to be checked and ver­i­fied in Clarke’s pres­ence.

Ear­li­er on, when po­lice ar­rived at the DSS base, Clarke, clear­ly per­turbed by their pres­ence, live-streamed the raid on In­sta­gram to show of­fi­cers were there a sec­ond time and briefly re­marked in the two-minute video, “I am be­ing raid­ed again.”

Sev­er­al peo­ple com­ment­ed dur­ing his live stream.

One per­son said: “All I want to know is what go­ing on with To­ba­go.”

An­oth­er re­marked, “Like Bar­ba­dos reach,” while an­oth­er view­er said, “I dun­no why I cyar get my mon­ey, all yuh po­lice sick­en­ing.”

Ear­li­er this month, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said Gov­ern­ment had sought for­eign as­sis­tance with the DSS in­ves­ti­ga­tion due to the al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion lev­elled against TTPS mem­bers.

Speak­ing at a PNM post-Bud­get fo­rum in Bel­mont, Row­ley had warned, “For a mem­ber of the De­fence Force to stand up on the front page of the news­pa­per telling the coun­try I am the one or­gan­is­ing this, that is not a sou-sou, that is a threat to the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go and if we don’t in­ves­ti­gate it prop­er­ly it will be can­cer that will eat the soul of this na­tion.”


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