A Unit­ed Na­tions gen­er­al se­cu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion re­port on T&T claims that some “com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers” are striv­ing to­wards po­lit­i­cal pow­er “as a way of in­fil­trat­ing le­git­i­mate state struc­tures.”

The re­port, re­leased on Wednes­day, al­so said that mafia-style struc­tures are “re­port­ed­ly high­ly vi­o­lent,” adding that “some of their lead­ers dou­ble up as ‘com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers’.”

The re­port not­ed that the lev­el of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in Trinidad re­mains chal­leng­ing for the au­thor­i­ties, with a less­er con­cern in To­ba­go.

How­ev­er, it added that as the grad­ual lift­ing of re­stric­tions on move­ment pre­vi­ous­ly in place for COVID-19 have start­ed, “there seems to be an in­crease in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, in­clud­ing mur­ders, when com­pared to 2021.”

“The po­lice have con­tin­ued to make progress in their ef­forts to com­bat the se­ri­ous crime sit­u­a­tion. In ad­di­tion, they con­tin­ue to ac­tive­ly work and im­prove their im­age with the pop­u­la­tion. Sev­er­al ini­tia­tives/strate­gies have been im­ple­ment­ed to com­bat crime, which have seen some pos­i­tive re­sults in the im­prove­ment and the re­duc­tion in all ar­eas of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. How­ev­er, there is some con­cern in the num­ber of mur­ders that have tak­en place over the last quar­ter,” the re­port stat­ed.

“The crime rate in Trinidad and To­ba­go is con­sid­ered ‘high’. Gun-re­lat­ed crime is preva­lent. Mur­ders, shoot­ings and wound­ing, bur­glar­ies and break-ins, rape/sex­u­al as­saults, lar­ce­ny of ve­hi­cles, and rob­beries oc­cur reg­u­lar­ly,” it added.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, the UN staff and as­sets are not di­rect­ly tar­get­ed by crim­i­nal­i­ty, nor is there any ev­i­dence to sug­gest that they will be.

It did note that the T&T Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to face nu­mer­ous chal­lenges in the ef­fort to re­duce crime.

In its analy­sis and rec­om­men­da­tions, it stat­ed that in­creased cau­tion is rec­om­mend­ed for UN per­son­nel vis­it­ing or work­ing in T&T due to some con­cerns re­lat­ed with crime, haz­ards and ter­ror­ism.

“Vi­o­lent shoot­ing oc­curs in some ar­eas of the coun­try, in­clud­ing Port-of- Spain. Some ar­eas, as Laven­tille, Beetham, Sea Lots, Co­corite and the in­te­ri­or of Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, have in­creased risk of crime,” it said.

“Ac­cord­ing to re­li­able in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the na­tion­al au­thor­i­ties and diplo­mat­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tions ac­cred­it­ed in the coun­try, vi­o­lent crime, such as mur­der, rob­bery, as­sault, home in­va­sion and kid­nap­ping, is com­mon. Gang ac­tiv­i­ty, such as nar­cotics traf­fick­ing, is com­mon. A sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of vi­o­lent crime is gang-re­lat­ed.”

The re­port al­so not­ed that T&T’s strate­gic po­si­tion is be­lieved to ap­peal to transna­tion­al crim­i­nal groups, es­pe­cial­ly those en­gaged in traf­fick­ing drugs to the US, Cana­da and Eu­rope

It al­so dis­closed that there are be­tween 95 and 102 crim­i­nal net­works in T&T, with a to­tal num­ber of be­tween 1,200 and 1,300 in­di­vid­u­als.

“Crim­i­nal net­works tend to be small, with ei­ther no or lim­it­ed links to transna­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions or po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence. Such groups are in­volved pri­mar­i­ly in drug traf­fick­ing, al­though it is al­leged that they al­so en­gage in arms traf­fick­ing and fraud. The ma­jor­i­ty of these net­works are con­cen­trat­ed in Port-of-Spain, but a strong pres­ence has been ob­served in im­pov­er­ished com­mu­ni­ties in ur­ban ar­eas as well,” the re­port said.

The Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen was al­so men­tioned in the re­port. Not­ing that the Ja­maat had more than 600 mem­bers and was led by Yasin Abu Bakr un­til his death on Oc­to­ber 21 2021, it said it “is be­lieved to be the most well-known mafia struc­ture in the coun­try. It is al­leged­ly in­volved in drug and arms traf­fick­ing, ex­tor­tion, kid­nap­ping, mon­ey laun­der­ing and hu­man smug­gling.”

On the top­ic of ter­ror­ism, the threat from ISIS sup­port­ers in T&T and the pos­si­ble re­turn of in­di­vid­u­als who trav­elled, or at­tempt­ed to trav­el, to Syr­ia or Iraq to fight with ISIS, was high­light­ed as the pri­ma­ry ter­ror­ism con­cern in the coun­try.

“Sev­er­al known ex­trem­ists/ISIS-af­fil­i­at­ed groups op­er­ate in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Al­though the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go has made strides to ad­dress for­eign ter­ror­ist fight­ers by pass­ing an An­ti-Ter­ror­ist law in 2018, there has been lit­tle progress in im­ple­ment­ing its Counter-ter­ror­ism Strat­e­gy,” the re­port said.

It al­so not­ed that the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry con­tin­ues to dis­cuss the is­sues of crime and counter-ter­ror­ism with stake­hold­ers and Par­lia­ment.