503 days under SoE as gang threats trouble T&T

Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­[email protected]

For the ma­jor­i­ty of the last 503 days, T&T has been in a State of Emer­gency (SoE), with three sep­a­rate SoEs, each with ex­ten­sions, im­ple­ment­ed since De­cem­ber 2024. And while they were called by two op­pos­ing ad­min­is­tra­tions, the rea­sons giv­en by both gov­ern­ments were the same, im­mi­nent and se­ri­ous pub­lic threats posed by gangs.

Talk about im­mi­nent and present gang threats re­turned to Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day when At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie an­nounced that some par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials re­ceived ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty be­cause of a re­cent in­ci­dent in­volv­ing a Bel­mont gang mem­ber.

If a gang mem­ber from Bel­mont caused a se­ri­ous na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty threat on Fri­day, May 8, there has been no pub­lic ar­rest or, giv­en that T&T is in a SoE, no de­ten­tion or­der has been pub­lished.

A re­view of de­ten­tion or­ders by Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk showed that three peo­ple from Bel­mont were de­tained dur­ing the cur­rent SoE.

Two of the three, de­tained be­fore the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s an­nounce­ment last Wednes­day, were list­ed as be­ing part of a prison smug­gling ring.

There were no le­gal no­tices pub­lish­ing the names of any al­leged Bel­mont gang mem­bers since the AG’s an­nounce­ment.

Since the SoEs were im­ple­ment­ed, hun­dreds of al­leged gang mem­bers and lead­ers have been in­car­cer­at­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk’s re­search, since March 3, the be­gin­ning of the present SoE, 227 pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion or­ders have been is­sued by the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, Roger Alexan­der.

Mem­bers of at least 19 dif­fer­ent gangs and 14 crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions have been de­tained.

Thir­teen al­leged lead­ers and fac­tion­al lead­ers of the fol­low­ing gangs and or­gan­ised crim­i­nal groups were held on PDOs:

Sun­day (alias), al­leged leader of Ras­ta City (7 Gang)

Ya­cob, al­leged leader of the 7 Gang

Park­er, al­leged leader of the Park­er gang

Dover, al­leged leader of the 7 gang

JDG, al­leged leader of the 7 Gang

Buck, al­leged leader of the Va­len­cia fac­tion of the Re­sis­tance gang

Bon­zo, al­leged leader of the Mandin­go Boys gang

Boozie, al­leged leader of a Cou­va-based gang

Smokey, al­leged leader of the Mar­ket Hill gang

Kratos, al­leged leader of the Aliens gang

Bean, al­leged leader of an or­gan­ised crime group (OCG)

Alex, al­leged leader of a Trinci­ty-based OCG

Do­minic, al­leged leader of a Ch­agua­nas-based OCG

At least five of the de­tained al­leged gang lead­ers have faced crim­i­nal charges.

Sun­day was charged with coun­selling a gang leader and grant­ed bail.

JDG was charged with gang-re­lat­ed of­fences, but was lat­er re­leased.

Buck faced charges for shoot­ing with in­tent, pos­ses­sion of a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion, and is out on bail.

Boozie was charged with shoot­ing at TTPS of­fi­cers with in­tent and is out on bail.

Smokey served a term of less than a year for rob­bery.

Mean­while, Kratos and Bon­zo were ar­rest­ed last year, but were not charged.

The gangs with the most de­tainees were the Port-of-Spain-based Sev­en/Ras­ta City gang, which has 26 de­tainees; the Sixx gang, which has 19 de­tainees; and the Re­sis­tance gang, with 10 de­tainees.

The de­tained Ras­ta City/Sev­en gang mem­bers pri­mar­i­ly live in Laven­tille, Beetham Gar­dens, Sea Lots, San Juan and El So­cor­ro.

An April in­tel­li­gence re­port on one of the 7 de­tainees stat­ed: “The de­tainee and oth­ers in­tend to im­mi­nent­ly es­ca­late armed at­tacks on ri­vals in pub­lic spaces.”

The de­tained Sixx gang mem­bers live pri­mar­i­ly in East Port-of-Spain, but there were al­so mem­bers liv­ing in Guapo, Arou­ca and St Joseph.

A March in­tel­li­gence re­port stat­ed: “Fol­low­ing the killing of gang mem­ber ‘Dap­pa Six’ in Feb­ru­ary 2026, re­ports con­firmed that the gang’s lead­er­ship is­sued in­struc­tions for re­tal­ia­to­ry shoot­ings and vi­o­lent reprisals against the ri­val 7 gang.”

The de­tained Re­sis­tance gang mem­bers were from East Trinidad, in­clud­ing Va­len­cia and Ari­ma.

East Port-of-Spain ac­count­ed for the most de­tainees with 43 peo­ple, rep­re­sent­ing around 19 per cent of those held.

Pi­ar­co had the sec­ond high­est num­ber of de­tainees with 18; Clax­ton Bay with 16; San­gre Grande with 13; Pe­nal with 12; Va­len­cia and Ari­ma with 11 each; and Siparia and Mara­bel­la with nine each.

Four­teen de­tainees were Venezue­lan na­tion­als.

They were list­ed as be­ing mem­bers of a kid­nap­ping gang, mem­bers of the Venezue­lan-based gang Tren de Aragua, or as key play­ers in hu­man and gun traf­fick­ing op­er­a­tions with links to lo­cal gangs.

Nine women were among those de­tained, in­clud­ing one woman who was ac­cused of fi­nanc­ing the 7 gang.

Four de­tainees were ac­tive na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials, two prison of­fi­cers, a po­lice of­fi­cer and a mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cer, all ac­cused of aid­ing gangs.

Ac­cord­ing to Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) da­ta, half of the ar­rests made dur­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment’s first SoE, be­tween Ju­ly 18, 2025 and Jan­u­ary 30, 2026, re­sult­ed in charges.

There were 5,738 ar­rests and 2,880 charges in the 197 days.

In 2025, ac­cord­ing to TTPS da­ta, 23 per cent of all mur­ders, 86 of 369 mur­ders, end­ed with charges. Da­ta on con­vic­tions, how­ev­er, was not avail­able.

De­fence At­tor­ney Criston J Williams saw par­al­lels in the AG’s re­cent claims and pre­vi­ous claims made by the State against a group of his in­car­cer­at­ed clients.

The mur­der ac­cused, in­clud­ing Ra­jaee Ali, were trans­ferred from the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison to Staubles Bay and Teteron Bar­racks in late 2025, and were sus­pect­ed by the State of plan­ning at­tacks against sev­er­al se­nior of­fi­cials.

None of them has been charged in re­la­tion to the al­leged threats, but they re­main at the Bar­racks, pend­ing the out­come of a ju­di­cial re­view.

“If they have the iden­ti­ty of the gang mem­ber (from Bel­mont), they have the pow­ers un­der an SoE to put him on a de­ten­tion or­der. What is the point of talk­ing about one sin­gle gang mem­ber who is cre­at­ing a threat? How can that be a threat? Why would you put that in the me­dia?” he asked.

The at­tor­ney be­lieved the threat was part of the Gov­ern­ment’s plan to get its Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO), which in­cludes cur­fews in cer­tain com­mu­ni­ties, passed through the back door.

“At this mo­ment in time, the whole gang in Bel­mont, all 25 of them, could be put on a de­ten­tion or­der and tak­en off the streets with­out any fuss…If you know the in­for­ma­tion, why don’t you just tell your Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter? It’s the Min­is­ter of De­fence, that’s cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion, and you just lock the peo­ple up us­ing the pow­ers the par­lia­ment has al­ready giv­en you. Why is this one sin­gle gang mem­ber brave enough to threat­en par­lia­ment? Noth­ing you are telling me has any in­tel­li­gence back­ing from any­one else.”

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Dau­rius Figueira al­so ques­tioned the le­git­i­ma­cy and mo­tives of the AG’s state­ment.

“Is the state man­u­fac­tur­ing threats to jus­ti­fy per­ma­nent SoEs?...What has been ac­com­plished to neu­tralise these threats? Where are these threats em­a­nat­ing from? From the gang­land of North Trinidad and To­ba­go, gang­land from Cunu­pia to Bar­rack­pore? All the tar­gets list­ed are in the North. Is it a threat from the North? How can those of the South at­tack the State in a space that is hos­tile to them? Con­tin­ue to hood­wink the pop­u­la­tion,” Figueira said.

On Fri­day, sev­er­al Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors and MPs said they were un­aware of a se­cu­ri­ty threat against par­lia­men­tar­i­ans.

At­tempts to get fur­ther in­for­ma­tion, such as who was threat­ened and by whom, from At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie and De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge proved fu­tile, with both ig­nor­ing ques­tions from the me­dia.

In De­cem­ber 2024, the for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley-led ad­min­is­tra­tion de­clared an SoE be­cause in­tel­li­gence in­di­cat­ed there was a se­ri­ous threat of gang reprisal killings on a large scale.

In Ju­ly 2025, the sec­ond SoE was an­nounced by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

The rea­sons for the SoE were sim­i­lar to the rea­sons giv­en by the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion, the threat of large-scale reprisal vi­o­lence by gangs.

That SoE was ex­tend­ed twice be­fore end­ing on Jan­u­ary 31.

A third SoE be­gan in ear­ly March.

Once again, like the pre­vi­ous two SoEs, the rea­son giv­en was the im­mi­nent threat of wide­spread gang vi­o­lence threat­en­ing pub­lic safe­ty.

There was a sig­nif­i­cant de­crease in se­ri­ous crimes, with mur­ders de­clin­ing to 369 in 2025, the coun­try’s low­est fig­ure in a decade.

How­ev­er, there were sev­er­al mass killings and shoot­ings dur­ing the pe­ri­od.

Last week, three peo­ple, in­clud­ing two-year-old Akan­ni Kafi, were mur­dered in Bel­mont.

Last Sun­day, three Arou­ca res­i­dents were shot.

In late April, four peo­ple, in­clud­ing nine-year-old J’Lay­na Arm­strong, were shot dead along La­dy Young Road.

In March, three men, 17 years old, 21 years old, and 22 years old, were mur­dered in their San Fer­nan­do home.

In Feb­ru­ary, three men were killed by armed men in Laven­tille.

In Jan­u­ary, an 11-year-old girl was among three peo­ple shot in their legs dur­ing a dri­ve-by shoot­ing in Laven­tille.

In De­cem­ber 2025, three peo­ple were in­jured dur­ing a shoot­ing in Chatham, Point Fortin.

In Oc­to­ber 2025, three peo­ple were shot as part of an on­go­ing Mt Hope com­mu­ni­ty feud, killing two broth­ers, in­clud­ing a 15-year-old.

That month, four oth­ers, in­clud­ing two teenagers, were shot in Bras­so, killing a 20-year-old.

In Feb­ru­ary 2025, three peo­ple were shot dead, and a six-year-old boy was in­jured, when men stormed their Gua­napo home.

Sixx

Ras­ta City/7

8

9

Any­body Gets It (ABG)

Re­sis­tance

North Coast Gang

Rail­way­road Bad­ness

Rat­ed R

Killers & Sin­ners

Mandin­go Boys

Mar­ket Hill

Strak­er

Aliens

So­tio

La Hor­quet­ta Phase 7 Mus­lim Gang

Easy

Sawmill Av­enue 7

Tren de Aragua

Ja­madar Street, San Fer­nan­do

Clax­ton Bay

Ari­ma

Orop­une

Siparia

En­ter­prise

Pe­nal

Mar­aval

Cou­va

San­gre Grande

St James

Cunu­pia

Trinci­ty

Un­named kid­nap­ping gangs