UK report reveals over 180 gangs operating in T&T

A new­ly re­leased Unit­ed King­dom Gov­ern­ment as­sess­ment has paint­ed a sober­ing pic­ture of the ex­tent of gang ac­tiv­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go, es­ti­mat­ing that more than 180 gangs op­er­ate across the coun­try and link­ing or­gan­ised crim­i­nal groups to rough­ly one-third of all mur­ders.

The re­port, pub­lished this month by UK Visas and Im­mi­gra­tion as part of its Coun­try Pol­i­cy and In­for­ma­tion Note se­ries, pro­vides one of the most com­pre­hen­sive re­cent in­ter­na­tion­al as­sess­ments of gangs in Trinidad and To­ba­go. While de­signed pri­mar­i­ly to as­sist British of­fi­cials in eval­u­at­ing asy­lum ap­pli­ca­tions, the doc­u­ment of­fers an ex­ten­sive ex­am­i­na­tion of the coun­try's crim­i­nal land­scape and the chal­lenges fac­ing law en­force­ment agen­cies.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, crim­i­nal gangs re­main heav­i­ly con­cen­trat­ed in eco­nom­i­cal­ly dis­ad­van­taged ur­ban com­mu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly in and around Port of Spain and along the East-West Cor­ri­dor. How­ev­er, the doc­u­ment notes that gang-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence has al­so spread in­to oth­er ar­eas, ex­tend­ing south­ward to­wards Ch­agua­nas and San Fer­nan­do and in­creas­ing­ly af­fect­ing To­ba­go.

The as­sess­ment es­ti­mates that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 186 gangs were op­er­at­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go as of 2023, with a com­bined mem­ber­ship of around 1,750 in­di­vid­u­als. Among the most in­flu­en­tial groups iden­ti­fied are the Mus­lims and Ras­ta City gangs, which re­port­ed­ly serve as ma­jor pow­er cen­tres around which small­er gangs of­ten align.

While the re­port notes that Trinidad and To­ba­go's gangs are small­er and less dom­i­nant than no­to­ri­ous transna­tion­al groups such as El Sal­vador's MS-13, it nev­er­the­less de­scribes them as ma­jor dri­vers of vi­o­lent crime.

Re­searchers found that gangs are in­volved in a wide range of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing mur­ders, kid­nap­pings, armed rob­beries, ex­tor­tion, hu­man traf­fick­ing and the il­le­gal firearms trade. Small busi­ness own­ers op­er­at­ing with­in gang-con­trolled com­mu­ni­ties were iden­ti­fied as par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble to ex­tor­tion de­mands and threats of vi­o­lence.

One of the re­port's more trou­bling find­ings con­cerns youth re­cruit­ment. It states that gang mem­ber­ship is large­ly com­posed of young men from dis­ad­van­taged com­mu­ni­ties, many with lim­it­ed ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties and un­sta­ble fam­i­ly back­grounds. Sources cit­ed in the doc­u­ment re­port­ed re­cruit­ment oc­cur­ring among chil­dren be­tween the ages of 12 and 16, in­clud­ing with­in schools. Gangs were al­so re­port­ed to re­cruit mem­bers from with­in the prison sys­tem.

The re­port fur­ther notes that in­di­vid­u­als who refuse to join gangs, at­tempt to leave gang life, or open­ly chal­lenge gang au­thor­i­ty can be­come tar­gets for vi­o­lence. Fam­i­ly mem­bers of gang-af­fil­i­at­ed per­sons, as well as po­lice of­fi­cers, prison of­fi­cers, mem­bers of the ju­di­cia­ry and pros­e­cu­tors, were al­so iden­ti­fied as po­ten­tial tar­gets.

Al­though the UK as­sess­ment ac­knowl­edges that Trinidad and To­ba­go pos­sess­es an­ti-gang leg­is­la­tion and spe­cialised po­lice units ded­i­cat­ed to com­bat­ing or­gan­ised crime, it rais­es con­cerns about the ca­pac­i­ty of law en­force­ment agen­cies to ef­fec­tive­ly con­tain the threat.

Cit­ing in­for­ma­tion from the Unit­ed Na­tions Of­fice on Drugs and Crime, the re­port says se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials have ad­mit­ted be­ing over­whelmed by the scale of gang ac­tiv­i­ty. In­ves­ti­ga­tors re­port­ed­ly face dif­fi­cul­ties iden­ti­fy­ing sus­pects, gath­er­ing in­tel­li­gence and se­cur­ing pros­e­cu­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly in tight­ly knit com­mu­ni­ties where gangs ex­ert sig­nif­i­cant in­flu­ence and where of­fi­cers may fear reprisals against them­selves or their fam­i­lies.

The doc­u­ment al­so high­lights con­cerns over crim­i­nal in­fil­tra­tion in­to pub­lic projects. It notes that in Oc­to­ber 2025 the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment sus­pend­ed sev­er­al pub­lic con­tracts in gang-con­trolled ar­eas as part of ef­forts to ad­dress al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion and crim­i­nal in­flu­ence.

De­spite these chal­lenges, the UK as­sess­ment stops short of de­scrib­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go as a state over­whelmed by or­gan­ised crime. It con­cludes that while gangs main­tain in­flu­ence in spe­cif­ic com­mu­ni­ties, their pow­er is not con­sid­ered wide­spread enough to dom­i­nate the na­tion­al po­lit­i­cal sys­tem or ex­er­cise sys­tem­at­ic con­trol be­yond the ar­eas in which they op­er­ate.

The re­port comes at a time when in­ter­na­tion­al scruti­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go's se­cu­ri­ty en­vi­ron­ment has in­ten­si­fied, par­tic­u­lar­ly fol­low­ing ris­ing asy­lum claims by Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als in the Unit­ed King­dom. It pro­vides a stark re­minder that de­spite on­go­ing law en­force­ment ef­forts, gang vi­o­lence re­mains one of the coun­try's most per­sis­tent and com­plex na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges.