Gail Alexan­der

The Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment is T&T’s clos­est friend and part­ner in the world and ad­dress­ing firearms traf­fick­ing is a US-Caribbean pri­or­i­ty, a US Em­bassy spokesper­son said in re­sponse to the call by Cari­com lead­ers for sup­port to stop the flow of il­lic­it guns from the US in­to the re­gion.

Firearms traf­fick­ing has been the fo­cus of on­go­ing talks with the US Gov­ern­ment at var­i­ous lev­els, in­clud­ing For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne with US Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken and US Am­bas­sador to T&T Can­dace Bond.

Giv­en the ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion and analy­sis pre­sent­ed at the Cari­com crime sym­po­sium in Port-of-Spain ear­li­er this week, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Ja­maica Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness dis­cussed the mat­ter with Bond who at­tend­ed the sym­po­sium.

In re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia, the Em­bassy spokesper­son re­ferred to Bond’s pledges of com­mit­ment to work with the T&T Gov­ern­ment to fight vi­o­lent crime.

“The Em­bassy of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca con­tin­ues to work with, and pro­vides sig­nif­i­cant se­cu­ri­ty as­sis­tance to, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and oth­er na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies to sup­port ef­forts to ad­dress the root caus­es of crime and vi­o­lence and im­prove cit­i­zen se­cu­ri­ty.”

The spokesper­son al­so not­ed the US State De­part­ment’s March state­ment on US-Caribbean co­op­er­a­tion to stop firearms traf­fick­ing. The De­part­ment had said that dis­rupt­ing il­lic­it firearms traf­fick­ing in the Caribbean is a shared pri­or­i­ty for the US “and our Caribbean part­ners, and an im­por­tant as­pect of our co­op­er­a­tion to ad­dress ris­ing lev­els of crime and vi­o­lence in the re­gion.”

The state­ment con­tin­ued: “As a top pri­or­i­ty by Caribbean part­ners in the May 2022 Caribbean-US Se­cu­ri­ty Co­op­er­a­tion Di­a­logue, US se­cu­ri­ty as­sis­tance through the Caribbean Basin Se­cu­ri­ty Ini­tia­tive in­cludes build­ing re­gion­al ca­pac­i­ty to dis­rupt il­lic­it firearms traf­fick­ing.”

In ad­di­tion, the US Bi­par­ti­san Safer Com­mu­ni­ties Act signed in­to law in Ju­ly 2022 “dra­mat­i­cal­ly in­creased crim­i­nal penal­ties for straw pur­chasers and US-sourced firearms traf­fick­ing.”

Pro­vi­sions un­der the Stop Il­le­gal Traf­fick­ing in Firearms Act as­sign fur­ther penal­ties for smug­gled firearms or am­mu­ni­tion out of the US with in­tent to pro­mote transna­tion­al or­ga­nized crime. Fur­ther US as­sis­tance, in­clud­ing US in­ves­tiga­tive and ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing sup­port to the Caribbean was al­so list­ed.

The Em­bassy spokesper­son not­ed that last Sep­tem­ber, law en­force­ment of­fi­cers from 19 Caribbean coun­tries along with In­ter­pol, Cari­com, the World Cus­toms Or­ga­ni­za­tion, the US Bu­reau of Al­co­hol, To­bac­co, Firearms, and Ex­plo­sives (ATF) and HSI co­op­er­at­ed on a joint op­er­a­tion that led to the seizure of 350 weapons, 3,300 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, and ten tons of co­caine.

“Al­so, in Oc­to­ber 2022, three mem­bers of a Caribbean arms traf­fick­ing ring, two of whom are na­tion­als of Trinidad and To­ba­go, were charged with con­spir­a­cy to smug­gle goods from the Unit­ed States. Six months lat­er, in April 2023, they plead­ed guilty to arms traf­fick­ing and face sev­er­al years in prison.

“Var­i­ous US law en­force­ment agen­cies, al­so res­i­dent at the US Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain, in­clud­ing the FBI, DEA, ATF, diplo­mat­ic se­cu­ri­ty, the State De­part­ment’s Bu­reau of In­ter­na­tion­al Nar­cotics and Law En­force­ment and US Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion, work close­ly with Trinidad and To­ba­go law en­force­ment to com­bat nar­cotics and arms traf­fick­ing that fund and dri­ve crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

The spokesper­son not­ed that Bond, on as­sum­ing du­ties, pledged to con­tin­ue to work with the T&T peo­ple and gov­ern­ment to help ad­dress the vi­o­lent crime scourge “and bring the best and most com­pre­hen­sive ca­pa­bil­i­ties of the Unit­ed States to help make safer Trin­bag­on­ian com­mu­ni­ties.”

The spokesper­son not­ed Bond’s state­ment: “To the great­est ex­tent pos­si­ble, we will work to­geth­er to chip away at this scourge of vi­o­lent crime and dis­rup­tion to every­day life and bring our best and most com­pre­hen­sive ca­pa­bil­i­ties to help make Trin­bag­on­ian com­mu­ni­ties safer.

“This will re­quire a laser fo­cus on our long-stand­ing se­cu­ri­ty part­ner­ship and the dili­gent im­ple­men­ta­tion of Caribbean Basin Se­cu­ri­ty Ini­tia­tive-fund­ed cit­i­zen safe­ty pro­grammes that work to pre­vent gang vi­o­lence, re­duce vi­o­lent crime, and strength­en Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ju­di­cial sys­tem.”

The Em­bassy spokesper­son al­so not­ed Bond’s com­mit­ment “to de­vel­op­ing and im­ple­ment­ing win-win ini­tia­tives that work for both sides, as these are ini­tia­tives that se­cure re­sults with sus­tain­able im­pact.”

US as­sis­tance against Weapons traf­fick­ing

Caribbean Crime Gun In­tel­li­gence Unit (CCGIU)

In No­vem­ber 2022, the CARI­COM Im­ple­men­ta­tion Agency for Crime and Se­cu­ri­ty (IM­PACS), with US in­ter­a­gency sup­port, in­au­gu­rat­ed the CCGIU to im­prove in­tel­li­gence and in­for­ma­tion shar­ing among Caribbean and US law en­force­ment agen­cies.

The CCGIU sup­ports Cari­com mem­ber states with seiz­ing firearms, re­lat­ed parts and com­po­nents, as well as in iden­ti­fy­ing, charg­ing, and pros­e­cut­ing co-con­spir­a­tors for firearms crimes.

The CCGIU works with US and in­ter­na­tion­al law en­force­ment part­ners in­clud­ing the US Bu­reau of Al­co­hol, To­bac­co, Firearms, and Ex­plo­sives (ATF), US Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty In­ves­ti­ga­tions (HSI), UK Na­tion­al Crime Agency (NCA), In­ter­pol and the Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sys­tem (RSS).

US In­ves­tiga­tive and Ca­pac­i­ty-Build­ing Sup­port to the Caribbean

US Bu­reau of Al­co­hol, To­bac­co, Firearms, and Ex­plo­sives (ATF) at­tachés in Ja­maica, The Ba­hamas, and T&T in­ves­ti­gate firearms traf­fick­ing cas­es with part­ner-coun­try law en­force­ment agen­cies and US in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

US Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty In­ves­ti­ga­tions (HSI) en­forces US ex­port laws and in­ves­ti­gates firearms and am­mu­ni­tion smug­gling op­er­a­tions vi­o­lat­ing these laws.

The Unit­ed States sup­ports projects by the World Cus­toms Or­ga­ni­za­tion, UN Of­fice on Drugs and Crime, and the In­ter­na­tion­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Mi­gra­tion to in­crease port and bor­der se­cu­ri­ty to com­bat il­lic­it traf­fick­ing.

Re­gion­al Co­or­di­na­tion

In May 2019, Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment for­mal­ly adopt­ed the Caribbean Firearms Traf­fick­ing Pri­or­i­ty Ac­tions which con­sist of a list of re­forms and re­gion­al en­gage­ments iden­ti­fied by US and Caribbean ex­perts to ef­fec­tive­ly ad­dress firearms traf­fick­ing with­in the re­gion.

In 2020, with US sup­port, the Cari­com Im­ple­men­ta­tion­al Agency for Crime and Se­cu­ri­ty (IM­PACS) and the Unit­ed Na­tions Re­gion­al Cen­tre for Peace, Dis­ar­ma­ment and De­vel­op­ment in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (UN­LIREC) de­vel­oped the Caribbean Firearms Roadmap. This frame­work pro­vides time­lines and base­lines for im­ple­ment­ing the Caribbean Firearms Traf­fick­ing Pri­or­i­ty Ac­tions.

To date, 12 Caribbean coun­tries have draft­ed na­tion­al ac­tion plans un­der the aus­pices of the Firearms Roadmap and Pri­or­i­ty Ac­tions. The Unit­ed States stands ready to help coun­tries im­ple­ment their in­di­vid­u­al­ized pri­or­i­ties, plans, and time­lines up­on com­ple­tion of their re­spec­tive na­tion­al ac­tion plans.

Op­er­a­tional Suc­cess­es

In March 2022, through Op­er­a­tion CITADEL, US Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty In­ves­ti­ga­tions (HSI) de­ployed agents and an­a­lysts through­out the Caribbean Re­gion to bol­ster firearms smug­gling in­ves­ti­ga­tions and in­tel­li­gence-shar­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties. HSI Op­er­a­tion CITADEL ef­forts and mul­ti­ple HSI-led in­ter­na­tion­al con­trolled de­liv­er­ies re­sult­ed in 111 firearm-re­lat­ed seizures, in­clud­ing 446 firearms and 188,256 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion.