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Friday, July 25, 2025

Why the TTPS recommended the SoE declaration

by

GUARDIAN MEDIA NEWSROOM
6 days ago
20250718
T&T Police Service Administration Building in Port of Spain.

T&T Police Service Administration Building in Port of Spain.

Trinidad and To­ba­go is now un­der a State of Emer­gency, fol­low­ing a procla­ma­tion by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Car­la Kan­ga­loo, af­ter a for­mal rec­om­men­da­tion from Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro.

The SoE went in­to im­me­di­ate ef­fect with the Pres­i­dent’s procla­ma­tion.

The fol­low­ing is the full text of the state­ment is­sued by the Po­lice Ser­vice, in which it lays out the case for a SoE to be de­clared.

De­c­la­ra­tion of a State of Emer­gency in Re­sponse to Co­or­di­nat­ed Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Threat

Re­cent in­tel­li­gence has con­firmed the emer­gence of a co­or­di­nat­ed and high­ly dan­ger­ous crim­i­nal net­work op­er­at­ing from with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties.

This net­work is ac­tive­ly mo­bi­liz­ing re­sources and or­ches­trat­ing tar­get­ed at­tacks against se­nior of­fi­cials and na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions. In re­sponse to the sever­i­ty and im­me­di­a­cy of this threat, the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, has for­mal­ly rec­om­mend­ed to the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go the de­c­la­ra­tion of a State of Emer­gency.

The in­tel­li­gence re­veals that in­car­cer­at­ed in­di­vid­u­als are ac­tive­ly lever­ag­ing in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal net­works to plan and ex­e­cute at­tacks on key fig­ures with­in the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and jus­tice sec­tors.

These ef­forts are not iso­lat­ed but rep­re­sent a struc­tured cam­paign in­volv­ing mul­ti­ple crim­i­nal en­ti­ties whose tar­gets in­clude se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers, mem­bers of the ju­di­cia­ry, per­son­nel with­in the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), and of­fi­cers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice. Ad­di­tion­al in­tel­li­gence con­tin­ues to be gath­ered through in­ter-agency col­lab­o­ra­tion.

A crit­i­cal en­abler of this threat has been the unau­tho­rized traf­fick­ing of cel­lu­lar de­vices in­to prison fa­cil­i­ties by com­pro­mised per­son­nel. These de­vices have fa­cil­i­tat­ed en­crypt­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions and re­al-time co­or­di­na­tion be­tween in­car­cer­at­ed in­di­vid­u­als and ex­ter­nal crim­i­nal op­er­a­tives. The fund­ing for these op­er­a­tions is de­rived from a range of vi­o­lent, as well as or­ga­nized crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing high-val­ue rob­beries, armed home in­va­sions, ex­tor­tion, kid­nap­ping, and the in­fil­tra­tion of state fund­ed con­tracts and pro­grammes.

The scale, co­or­di­na­tion, and in­ter­nal fa­cil­i­ta­tion of these ac­tiv­i­ties in­di­cate an op­er­a­tional ca­pa­bil­i­ty that ex­ceeds the con­tain­ment ca­pac­i­ty of con­ven­tion­al law en­force­ment mea­sures.

As such, a com­pre­hen­sive and im­me­di­ate strate­gic re­sponse was re­quired to safe­guard na­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty and pro­tect pub­lic of­fi­cials and in­sti­tu­tions.

The fore­most rec­om­men­da­tion of the State of Emer­gency will em­pow­er law en­force­ment agen­cies to ini­ti­ate rapid con­tain­ment ac­tions, en­hance in­ter-agency co­or­di­na­tion, and de­ploy ad­di­tion­al re­sources with the nec­es­sary au­thor­i­ty to neu­tral­ize the threat. No cur­few is rec­om­mend­ed at this time.

To op­er­a­tional­ize the re­sponse, a high-lev­el Threat Re­sponse Group from var­i­ous arms of law en­force­ment was es­tab­lished with a spe­cif­ic man­date to treat with this threat and its ac­tors.

An emer­gency brief­ing was giv­en to the Prime Min­is­ter and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al last night (Ju­ly 17, 2025) and im­me­di­ate steps were tak­en to en­act con­tain­ment, the strate­gic re­moval, and re­lo­ca­tion of key in­car­cer­at­ed in­di­vid­u­als, so as to dis­rupt com­mand struc­tures and pre­vent fur­ther co­or­di­na­tion.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, law en­force­ment units have al­ready be­gun tar­get­ed overt and covert op­er­a­tions, which shall con­tin­ue un­til the threat is neu­tralised.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice re­mains res­olute in its com­mit­ment to pro­tect­ing the na­tion’s de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions and the safe­ty of its cit­i­zens.

These ex­tra­or­di­nary mea­sures are nec­es­sary to pre­serve pub­lic or­der, re­store con­fi­dence in our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty frame­work, and en­sure the con­tin­ued sta­bil­i­ty of the coun­try. Cit­i­zens are urged to re­main calm, co­op­er­ate with law en­force­ment di­rec­tives, and re­port any sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty to the ap­pro­pri­ate au­thor­i­ties.


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