23 ordered detained under SoE powers

Twen­ty-three peo­ple, in­clud­ing two sons of for­mer al­leged gang and com­mu­ni­ty leader Sel­wyn “Robo­cop” Alex­is, have been de­tained un­der Per­son­al De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) is­sued un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, as se­cu­ri­ty forces con­tin­ue a sweep­ing crack­down on or­gan­ised crim­i­nal net­works op­er­at­ing un­der the State of Emer­gency (SoE).

The or­ders were is­sued yes­ter­day and in­clud­ed two women and two Venezue­lan na­tion­als.

Among those de­tained are Ker­ron Isi­ah Alex­is, iden­ti­fied as the al­leged leader of the Rat­ed R Gang, and his broth­er Kern Alex­is. Both are de­scribed in in­tel­li­gence re­ports as key fig­ures in a vi­o­lent crim­i­nal net­work linked to shoot­ings, drug traf­fick­ing and co­or­di­nat­ed at­tacks in­volv­ing high-pow­ered firearms.

Au­thor­i­ties said the op­er­a­tion al­so tar­get­ed mul­ti­ple gang lead­ers and fa­cil­i­ta­tors across the coun­try, in­clud­ing in­di­vid­u­als al­leged­ly in­volved in kid­nap­pings, firearms traf­fick­ing, car theft net­works and reprisal killings.

In one PDO, Adri­an Ram­nar­ine, of En­ter­prise, Cunu­pia, is al­leged to have played a cen­tral role in a ve­hi­cle theft net­work used to sup­port gang vi­o­lence, in­clud­ing in­spect­ing stolen ve­hi­cles and fa­cil­i­tat­ing the al­ter­ation of iden­ti­fy­ing marks for re­sale.

Po­lice al­so iden­ti­fied Mar­lon “Boozie” Boodram as a gang leader op­er­at­ing across Cou­va, Cal­i­for­nia and Clax­ton Bay, while Selvon “Bon­zo” An­drews was said to lead the “Mandin­go Boys” in Princes Town.

Jonathan “John­ny” Pen­co was de­scribed as a prin­ci­pal fig­ure in the 6ixx Or­gan­ised Crime Group in Arou­ca, while Omari “Fat­boy” Thomp­son is al­leged to play a lo­gis­ti­cal and op­er­a­tional role in vi­o­lent home in­va­sions and armed at­tacks.

Ja­son “Buck” Paul was iden­ti­fied as a leader of a Va­len­cia-based fac­tion linked to kid­nap­pings, firearms traf­fick­ing and tar­get­ed killings.

Na­tal­ie Har­ford was iden­ti­fied in in­tel­li­gence re­ports as a fi­nancier of the Sev­en Gang. She is al­leged to have pro­vid­ed fi­nan­cial sup­port for gang op­er­a­tions and to have is­sued threats di­rect­ing vi­o­lent ac­tion against both pri­vate in­di­vid­u­als and law en­force­ment tar­gets. Au­thor­i­ties said she played a fa­cil­i­ta­tive role in fund­ing ac­tiv­i­ties linked to planned re­tal­ia­to­ry at­tacks.

Crys­tal Le Blanc is al­so among the de­tained and is de­scribed as hav­ing a fa­cil­i­ta­tive role with­in a kid­nap­ping net­work. She is al­leged to be linked to co­or­di­nat­ed ab­duc­tions in­volv­ing mul­ti­ple of­fend­ers and cross-bor­der el­e­ments, with in­ves­ti­ga­tors stat­ing her con­tin­ued lib­er­ty posed a risk to on­go­ing op­er­a­tions and pub­lic safe­ty.

Venezue­lan na­tion­als Ed­uar­do Jose Febres Ro­driguez and Dio­genes Adri­an Ar­cia were al­so de­tained in con­nec­tion with a kid­nap­ping net­work op­er­at­ing be­tween Trinidad and Venezuela.

Over 80 in­di­vid­u­als have been de­tained since the Par­lia­ment ex­tend­ed the SoE in March. The reg­u­la­tions al­low for the de­ten­tion of in­di­vid­u­als deemed a threat to pub­lic safe­ty with­out im­me­di­ate charge, as part of on­go­ing ef­forts to dis­rupt or­gan­ised crime net­works and re­duce vi­o­lent crime.