Counter Trafficking Unit reviewing Guardian interview with self-confessed former trafficker

The Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty’s Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) says it is re­view­ing al­le­ga­tions con­tained in a Guardian in­ter­view with a man who claimed he op­er­at­ed a hu­man traf­fick­ing ring in Trinidad and To­ba­go for years.

In a state­ment on Fri­day, the CTU said it had tak­en note of the Ju­ly 26 ar­ti­cle, Con­fes­sions of a For­mer Hu­man Traf­fick­er: Alex Philip Re­counts Smug­gling Women in­to T&T, and the ac­com­pa­ny­ing video in­ter­view, which it said had gen­er­at­ed sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic con­cern.

While stress­ing it could not com­ment on the ac­cu­ra­cy of state­ments made through the me­dia, the Unit said the in­for­ma­tion had been brought to the at­ten­tion of the ap­pro­pri­ate au­thor­i­ties and was be­ing re­viewed to de­ter­mine what in­ves­tiga­tive or oth­er ac­tion may be re­quired.

The CTU said al­le­ga­tions in­volv­ing the re­cruit­ment, trans­porta­tion, har­bour­ing or re­ceipt of per­sons for the pur­pose of ex­ploita­tion are treat­ed se­ri­ous­ly un­der the Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act and as­sessed in ac­cor­dance with es­tab­lished in­ves­tiga­tive and le­gal pro­ce­dures.

It al­so sought to re­as­sure the pub­lic that cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ing to sus­pect­ed traf­fick­ing in per­sons can in­form in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing, on­go­ing en­quiries or fu­ture in­ves­ti­ga­tions, re­gard­less of when the al­leged con­duct may have oc­curred.

The state­ment fol­lows Guardian’s in­ter­view with Alex Philip, who claimed he traf­ficked Venezue­lan women and girls in­to Trinidad be­tween 2010 and 2016, op­er­at­ed the net­work with po­lice pro­tec­tion and catered to wealthy clients. The Guardian has not in­de­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fied those claims.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said the al­le­ga­tions had un­der­stand­ably at­tract­ed sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic at­ten­tion and would be treat­ed with the se­ri­ous­ness they de­serve.

“Where al­le­ga­tions of traf­fick­ing in per­sons arise, they are treat­ed with the se­ri­ous­ness they de­serve and are re­ferred through the ap­pro­pri­ate chan­nels for as­sess­ment and any ac­tion con­sid­ered nec­es­sary un­der the law,” he said.

The CTU is al­so en­cour­ag­ing any­one with in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ing to the al­le­ga­tions, or any oth­er sus­pect­ed in­ci­dents of hu­man traf­fick­ing, to come for­ward, say­ing re­ports may as­sist on­go­ing in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing, in­ves­ti­ga­tions or the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and pro­tec­tion of vic­tims.