CoP: US strikes disrupting drug and contraband flow to Trinidad

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has agreed with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar that tar­get­ed US bomb­ings of sev­er­al al­leged drug-smug­gling ves­sels off the coast of Venezuela in re­cent weeks have al­ready made a “mea­sur­able im­pact” on the lo­cal drug trade.

Con­firm­ing this dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, he said, “Yes. What the TTPS can con­firm to you is that an as­sess­ment done from the in­tel­li­gence agen­cies, in­clud­ing the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency, as well as the Spe­cial Branch and the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit of the TTPS, con­firmed that as a re­sult of the re­cent mil­i­tary strikes which were tar­get­ing the nar­co-ter­ror­ist mar­itime op­er­a­tions, there have had a mea­sur­able im­pact on the flow of il­le­gal nar­cotics in­to Trinidad.”

He said the price of il­lic­it nar­cotics had risen sharply be­cause of a short­age caused by re­cent US airstrikes and sev­er­al ma­jor seizures by lo­cal law en­force­ment in the past few weeks.

Gue­var­ro re­vealed, “The in­tel­li­gence in­di­cates that there is a cur­rent short­age of the il­lic­it drugs, par­tic­u­lar­ly from those traf­ficked from Venezuela and Colom­bia, and the dis­rup­tion has di­rect­ly af­fect­ed the avail­abil­i­ty of nar­cotics in T&T.”

Cit­ing the ris­ing lo­cal prices of il­lic­it nar­cotics and not­ing that de­mand had re­cent­ly surged, the com­mis­sion­er said, “In busi­ness terms, when there is a short­age in sup­ply cost goes up.”

“So we have de­tect­ed a marked in­crease in the price of il­le­gal nar­cotics on the streets.”

Not­ing that their ef­forts had led to the con­fis­ca­tion of near­ly two tonnes of mar­i­jua­na since the bomb­ings be­gan, Gue­var­ro said the law en­force­ment crack­down had al­so caused a no­tice­able de­cline in the sale of smug­gled wild meat lo­cal­ly.

He pro­vid­ed a time­line of just how and where the po­lice were hit­ting drug traf­fick­ers.

“On Sep­tem­ber 12, we seized 268 kgs of Colom­bia creepy mar­i­jua­na, val­ued at $29 mil­lion. On Sep­tem­ber 30, a tar­get­ed op­er­a­tion in Fyz­abad seized 201 kgs of Colom­bian creepy mar­i­jua­na val­ued at $22 mil­lion, and on Oc­to­ber 1, we seized 1,177 kgs of the same mar­i­jua­na, val­ued 292 mil­lion TT dol­lars.”

“In the south­west penin­su­la on Oc­to­ber 21, we in­ter­cept­ed a car and seized 90 pack­ets val­ued at $5 mil­lion, and on No­vem­ber 1, we again in­ter­cept­ed an­oth­er ve­hi­cle in Trinci­ty and seized 108 kgs.”

Boast­ing of his of­fi­cers’ ef­forts to stay one step ahead of the crim­i­nal el­e­ments, he said they were on the look­out for peo­ple rush­ing to cul­ti­vate more–as well as peo­ple seek­ing to im­port seeds from abroad.

“There are men look­ing for a par­tic­u­lar breed of seeds from abroad to bring in­to T&T, but we treat­ing with that al­ready and with mar­i­jua­na erad­i­ca­tion in all those dif­fer­ent ar­eas.”

He added, “We are not get­ting the Venezue­lan and Guyanese meat com­ing in again, so they are not stand­ing up at the side of the road hold­ing the smug­gled wild meat.

“So now, again, you see the bal­ance. It’s not on­ly work­ing to keep nar­cotics out, but it’s al­so work­ing to keep oth­er items out. Per­sons from smug­gling con­tra­band in­to the coun­try, and apart from that, de­spite the items that may be get­ting in, we now have a bet­ter han­dle and a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of how the in­flows work, so we are now able to cap­i­talise on the in­tel­li­gence and have some mean­ing­ful dis­rup­tions.”

Set­ting aside his usu­al re­frain for the pub­lic to “Get on board with the po­lice,” Gue­var­ro warned, “Your si­lence equals crime.”

“When you re­main silent and you see your neigh­bour with the gun, or you know your neigh­bour ain’t work­ing any­where but you see­ing him dri­ving the rental ve­hi­cle on a week­end and sport­ing all over the place, and you know com­mit­ting rob­beries and steal­ing peo­ple’s cars, and you eh say any­thing, even­tu­al­ly the vengeance of moko will fall on you. It will come back home. It will come home to roost one day, and then you be­come a vic­tim of crime be­cause you re­mained silent. So your si­lence, T&T, equals crime.”

Sep­tem­ber 2, 2025

* The Don­ald Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion an­nounced the first strike on a ves­sel in the Caribbean Sea that al­leged­ly had de­part­ed Venezuela and was op­er­at­ed by the gang Tren de Aragua. The US claimed 11 peo­ple were killed.

Sep­tem­ber 15, 2025

* A sec­ond strike oc­curred, killing 3 peo­ple ac­cord­ing to US of­fi­cials.

Sep­tem­ber 19, 2025

* The US an­nounced a third strike, killing 3 men aboard a ves­sel al­leged to be traf­fick­ing nar­cotics.

Oc­to­ber 3, 2025

* US of­fi­cials an­nounced a fourth strike on a small boat off Venezuela, killing 4 peo­ple.

Oc­to­ber 14, 2025

* A fifth strike an­nounced by the US, killing 6 peo­ple aboard a ves­sel al­leged to be smug­gling nar­cotics in Caribbean wa­ters.

Oc­to­ber 16, 2025

* The sixth strike re­port­ed­ly oc­curred on a se­mi-sub­mersible ves­sel in the Caribbean; two sur­vivors were cap­tured and lat­er repa­tri­at­ed to Ecuador/Colom­bia.

Oc­to­ber 17, 2025

* A sev­enth strike killed 3 peo­ple on board a ves­sel that US of­fi­cials claimed was linked to the Na­tion­al Lib­er­a­tion Army (ELN) of Colom­bia.

Oc­to­ber 24, 2025

* The eighth strike was an­nounced, and the US said this at­tack killed 6 peo­ple.

No­vem­ber 1, 2025

* US of­fi­cials an­nounced an­oth­er strike in the Caribbean killing three peo­ple.