Cop caught in SoE net

Ke­jan Haynes 

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing 

A serv­ing po­lice of­fi­cer has been placed un­der pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion, af­ter be­ing iden­ti­fied for sup­ply­ing op­er­a­tional in­tel­li­gence to or­gan­ised crime groups, cre­at­ing a risk of im­mi­nent at­tacks be­tween ri­val gangs us­ing high-pow­ered firearms in pub­lic spaces.

Pra­manan Ra­j­path was among 11 peo­ple or­dered de­tained by Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der on March 16 and 17 un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2026. The mea­sures tar­get in­di­vid­u­als, in­clud­ing lead­ers and mem­bers of or­gan­ised crime groups un­der the An­ti-Gang Act, as­sessed to pose an im­me­di­ate threat to pub­lic safe­ty.

Re­spond­ing to the de­ten­tion of the of­fi­cer yes­ter­day, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Suzette Mar­tin, who is serv­ing as Gold Com­man­der for the State of Emer­gency (SoE), de­scribed the al­le­ga­tions as es­pe­cial­ly se­ri­ous, say­ing any sug­ges­tion that an of­fi­cer used their po­si­tion to com­pro­mise sen­si­tive op­er­a­tional in­for­ma­tion and fa­cil­i­tate crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty strikes at the core of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) man­date.

While de­clin­ing to com­ment on the specifics of the case, Mar­tin said the ac­tion re­flects the po­lice ser­vice’s com­mit­ment to main­tain­ing its in­tegri­ty and ad­dress­ing threats to pub­lic trust and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. She said in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions are de­signed to de­tect and pre­vent breach­es that could con­tribute to re­tal­ia­to­ry vi­o­lence be­tween or­gan­ised crim­i­nal groups.

Mar­tin added that the TTPS con­tin­ues to take a proac­tive ap­proach in iden­ti­fy­ing and ad­dress­ing in­ter­nal vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, not­ing that in­ci­dents of this na­ture, while con­cern­ing, demon­strate that in­ter­nal sys­tems are func­tion­ing.

She said mea­sures have been im­ple­ment­ed to con­tain any po­ten­tial op­er­a­tional risks, in­clud­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of reprisal at­tacks, and con­firmed there has been no dis­rup­tion to po­lice op­er­a­tions dur­ing the SoE.

“Let me be clear: any breach of trust by a mem­ber of the ser­vice will be dealt with de­ci­sive­ly and in ac­cor­dance with the law. The safe­ty of the pub­lic re­mains our high­est pri­or­i­ty, and we will con­tin­ue to act swift­ly to neu­tralise any threat to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty,” Mar­tin said.

Al­so con­tact­ed on the is­sue, Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Ish­mael Pitt said the mat­ter re­quired care­ful han­dling, not­ing the need to bal­ance the rights of the in­di­vid­ual with the in­tegri­ty of the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

“So gen­er­al­ly, it’s a bal­anc­ing act be­cause in one in­stance, we don’t want that an of­fi­cer is un­fair­ly treat­ed, un­fair­ly sanc­tioned. I hold to the no­tion, at this point in time, that this per­son is in­no­cent un­til proven guilty. But on the oth­er hand, the or­gan­i­sa­tion has and will con­tin­ue to take steps in or­der to treat with is­sues that may un­der­mine the very in­sti­tu­tion it­self,” Pitt said.

He added that while the as­so­ci­a­tion sup­ports ef­forts by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to pre­serve its im­age and pre­vent it from be­ing un­der­mined, it will al­so en­sure the of­fi­cer re­ceives sup­port, in­clud­ing in any le­gal chal­lenge.

Most of the de­tainees named in the lat­est PDOs are con­nect­ed to vi­o­lent gangs in­volved in firearms-re­lat­ed crime, ter­ri­to­r­i­al dis­putes, and nar­cotics traf­fick­ing.

Aaron Bon and Michael Her­bert were de­tained for act­ing as ex­ter­nal fa­cil­i­ta­tors of smug­gling pro­hib­it­ed items, in­clud­ing firearms, nar­cotics, knives and mo­bile phones, in­to cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties, al­low­ing in­car­cer­at­ed crim­i­nals to con­tin­ue di­rect­ing op­er­a­tions and main­tain in­flu­ence over gang ac­tiv­i­ty.

Gang-re­lat­ed de­tainees in­clude Taheir “Trey” Khan, who is iden­ti­fied as the leader of a car theft net­work in En­ter­prise and Cunu­pia. Ve­hi­cles stolen by the net­work have been used in dead­ly gang vi­o­lence, in­clud­ing shoot­ings that caused mul­ti­ple deaths and se­ri­ous in­juries, the PDO said. In­tel­li­gence re­ports iden­ti­fy Khan as a key fig­ure whose con­tin­ued lib­er­ty posed a sub­stan­tial threat to pub­lic safe­ty.

Chris Charles, al­so known as “Chris Bal­ma­coon­s­ingh,” “Dey Dey,” and “Mon­s­ta 7,” was iden­ti­fied as an as­so­ciate of the Sev­en Gang in his PDO. He has ap­peared in on­line videos threat­en­ing reprisal shoot­ings and is linked to armed rob­beries, home in­va­sions and break-ins.

Oth­er de­tainees linked to gangs in­clude Dar­i­on “SMalls” Bhag­gan, de­scribed as a Re­sis­tance Gang mem­ber in Tu­na­puna who acts as a shoot­er, dri­ver and op­er­a­tional co­or­di­na­tor; Bar­ry “Hon­da Boss” Bick­ram, who op­er­ates a fa­cil­i­ty for con­ceal­ing and mod­i­fy­ing stolen ve­hi­cles; and mem­bers of the Ras­ta City/Sev­en Gang, in­clud­ing Tariq “Tiks”/“Teeths” Adams, Jahyel “Jayyel” Big­got and Den­ver Boyea, who were all iden­ti­fied as shoot­ers plan­ning im­mi­nent re­tal­ia­to­ry at­tacks against ri­val gangs.

Al­so among the pub­lished pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion or­ders is 16-year-old Jay­lon George, the first mi­nor de­tained un­der the cur­rent SoE. He is be­ing held at the Youth Train­ing and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre in Arou­ca, with po­lice al­leg­ing he is a shoot­er for the gang with ac­cess to high-pow­ered firearms and am­mu­ni­tion. His par­ents, Mar­lon Ward and Lis­lles George, have pub­licly de­clared their son’s in­no­cence.

All oth­er de­tainees are be­ing held at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre in San­ta Rosa, Ari­ma, un­der con­di­tions de­ter­mined by the min­is­ter.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Alexan­der for com­ment but none was re­ceived up un­til press time.

— With re­port­ing by Akash Sama­roo