Cop among 3 locals held by US officials on cocaine, gun charges

A serv­ing po­lice of­fi­cer in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice is among three na­tion­als held by the US and lo­cal law en­force­ment on charges of con­spir­a­cy to im­port co­caine and firearms in­to the Unit­ed States.

A state­ment from the US Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day said that per­son­nel from the US Drug En­force­ment Ad­min­is­tra­tion Vet­ted Unit, sup­port­ed by the TTPS’ Spe­cial In­ves­tiga­tive Unit and the Transna­tion­al Or­gan­ised Crime Unit, ex­e­cut­ed three Pro­vi­sion­al Ar­rest War­rants on De­cem­ber 30, 2025, for Trinidad cit­i­zens Rafael Joseph, Michael Mc­Sween, and Clevon Per­sad.

It said all three face charges in the East­ern Dis­trict of New York for con­spir­a­cy to im­port co­caine in­to the US and firearms of­fences stem­ming from a 2024 DEA in­ves­ti­ga­tion sup­port­ed by the DEA New York Field Di­vi­sion.

The em­bassy iden­ti­fied Joseph as an ac­tive-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer serv­ing in the TTPS.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro was quot­ed in the state­ment as con­firm­ing the of­fi­cer’s ar­rest.

“I can con­firm that close col­lab­o­ra­tion with Unit­ed States law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties has re­sult­ed in the suc­cess­ful ar­rest of a TTPS mem­ber who is now await­ing de­por­ta­tion. This joint op­er­a­tion re­flects the strength of our in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships and our un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to ac­count­abil­i­ty at every lev­el of the or­gan­i­sa­tion. The TTPS re­mains res­olute in up­hold­ing the high­est stan­dards of in­tegri­ty, and we will con­tin­ue to work with our glob­al coun­ter­parts to en­sure that any­one who be­trays the pub­lic trust is brought to jus­tice,” Gue­var­ro was quot­ed as say­ing.

US Em­bassy Chargé d’Af­faires Dr Jenifer Nei­d­hart de Or­tiz al­so spoke on the op­er­a­tion.

“This was a great ex­am­ple of bi­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion be­tween our two coun­tries and a sig­nif­i­cant blow to not on­ly drug and firearms traf­fick­ing, but al­so against pub­lic cor­rup­tion with the ar­rest of the po­lice of­fi­cer. The out­stand­ing co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the US Drug En­force­ment Ad­min­is­tra­tion’s Vet­ted Unit and SIU, and TOCU shows the mul­ti­pli­er pow­er of agen­cies of both of our great coun­tries work­ing to­geth­er.”

DEA Caribbean Di­vi­sion Spe­cial Agent in Charge, Michael A Mi­ran­da, added, “This op­er­a­tion re­flects the strength of true bi­lat­er­al part­ner­ship. The suc­cess­ful ex­e­cu­tion of these pro­vi­sion­al ar­rest war­rants by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Vet­ted Unit, with sup­port from SIU and TOCU, sends a clear mes­sage: no one is above the law. To­geth­er, we are not on­ly dis­man­tling drug and firearms traf­fick­ing net­works but al­so con­fronting pub­lic cor­rup­tion head-on. When trust­ed part­ner­ships stand unit­ed, our com­mu­ni­ties are safer, and jus­tice pre­vails.”