When a team of po­lice of­fi­cers de­scend­ed on the Drugs Sou Sou’s (DSS) of­fice in La Hor­quet­ta on Sep­tem­ber 22 and pur­port­ed­ly seized around $22 mil­lion, lit­tle did the coun­try know that a seem­ing­ly rou­tine raid would turn in­to an im­broglio nev­er be­fore seen in the his­to­ry of law en­force­ment in T&T.

In fact, the case is con­sid­ered to be so griev­ous that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on Thurs­day night de­scribed it as “a can­cer that could eat the soul of this na­tion.”

The in­volve­ment of mem­bers of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and De­fence Force in the op­er­a­tions of DSS and the stun­ning re­turn of the cash seized by the po­lice to DSS op­er­a­tor Ker­ron Clarke, left Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith as­tound­ed at the time, per­haps by the brazen­ness of how law en­force­ment of­fi­cers al­leged­ly in­volved in DSS op­er­at­ed with­out fear of be­ing caught.

Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith lat­er said there were “Tro­jan hors­es” in the T&TPS and that the in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the in­ci­dent were be­ing hin­dered and mis­di­rect­ed by his own of­fi­cers.

Be­fore he abrupt­ly pro­ceed­ed on va­ca­tion yes­ter­day, the Com­mis­sion­er sus­pend­ed four of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing two se­niors and trans­ferred 11 oth­ers. While Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith said this was done “to al­low the en­tire probe to be con­duct­ed in the most trans­par­ent man­ner,” sim­ply trans­fer­ring some of­fi­cers to oth­er sta­tions or di­vi­sions is not enough giv­en the mag­ni­tude of the al­leged ac­tiv­i­ties in­volved.

The lengths that some of­fi­cers who ap­pear to be com­plic­it in the scan­dal have gone to cov­er their tracks and brazen acts sug­gest there should be no op­por­tu­ni­ty for them to get their ten­ta­cles any­where near polic­ing mat­ters at this junc­ture.

Al­though the Com­mis­sion­er is known for his no-non­sense ap­proach to crime, the DSS saga clear­ly war­rants the in­ves­tiga­tive ex­per­tise of ex­ter­nal, in­de­pen­dent law en­force­ment of­fi­cials.

The an­nounce­ment by Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley that British and Bar­ba­di­an in­ves­ti­ga­tors are on their way to probe the DSS scan­dal is, there­fore, more than wel­come.

Al­ready, the TTPS, De­fence Force, Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty and Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit have all un­der­tak­en probes in­to the DSS scan­dal.

In the mean­time, how­ev­er, this me­dia house queries why the DSS is be­ing al­lowed to con­tin­ue its op­er­a­tions, giv­en the pro­nounce­ments on it by both Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith and Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley?

While its ad­min­is­tra­tors have claimed their in­no­cence, sev­er­al ques­tions sur­round­ing the es­tab­lish­ment, in­clu­sive of its name, do not sit right with sec­tors of the pop­u­la­tion. Dr Row­ley him­self says it is not a sou-sou and de­scribed it as a threat to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith mean­while as­sert­ed it was a much big­ger en­ter­prise than orig­i­nal­ly thought and in­volved sev­er­al ma­jor play­ers, in­clud­ing some in­volved in crim­i­nal en­ter­prise.

In the in­ter­est of jus­tice and fair­ness, there­fore, the op­er­a­tions should be ceased pend­ing the com­ple­tion of this probe as well.

If cit­i­zens are to be­lieve Gov­ern­ment and law en­force­ment of­fi­cials are all se­ri­ous about de­creas­ing crime—all crimes—ac­tion must, there­fore, be tak­en to en­sure the in­tegri­ty of the probes is main­tained.