Signal Hill residents shocked by human trafficking bust

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

A ma­jor coun­ter­traf­fick­ing op­er­a­tion in To­ba­go has shocked the is­land and left Sig­nal Hill res­i­dents dis­turbed by the se­ri­ous­ness of the al­le­ga­tions.

Yes­ter­day, po­lice re­turned to Aqua­ma­rine Dri­ve where they searched the prop­er­ty of Da­mon Do­minic Charles, tak­ing pho­tographs and gath­er­ing fur­ther ev­i­dence.

Charles, 38, was ar­rest­ed on Sat­ur­day un­der a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) pend­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to of­fences re­lat­ing to traf­fick­ing in chil­dren and sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion of a mi­nor. Of­fi­cers searched his prop­er­ty lat­er that day, where three Latin Amer­i­can women, ages 20 to 23, were stay­ing. They were screened and found to be on or­ders of su­per­vi­sion.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the neigh­bour­hood around 12.30 pm yes­ter­day, there was lit­tle ev­i­dence of the ac­tiv­i­ty that had tak­en place a day ear­li­er.

How­ev­er, a few min­utes lat­er, three po­lice ve­hi­cles — two un­marked — ar­rived at Charles’ un­paint­ed two-storey prop­er­ty.

A neigh­bour, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, told Guardian Me­dia he felt “un­set­tled” by the in­ci­dent, par­tic­u­lar­ly as it hap­pened so close to his abode.

He said he was stunned to see the po­lice ve­hi­cle stop near his home and of­fi­cers ex­it.

“I hear the thing and thought it was some­where else; it shocked me to know is right here. Traf­fick­ing peo­ple is re­al­ly heavy stuff,” he said.

Asked if he knew Charles, the neigh­bour said he had seen him at the prop­er­ty from time to time. How­ev­er, he ex­pressed scep­ti­cism that Charles was in­volved in any­thing ne­far­i­ous, not­ing he looked like a reg­u­lar neigh­bour and nev­er act­ed sus­pi­cious­ly.

“He does come by now and then. He doesn’t live there. I don’t think this guy in­to any­thing fun­ny.

“He or­gan­ised the place to rent. I don’t be­lieve he knows what’s go­ing on; trust­ing peo­ple is a chance.”

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der warned that it is a mis­take to judge a book by its cov­er.

“While we see every­body with this great face, jack­et and tie and all of that, you nev­er know what they are in­volved in. Some peo­ple dis­guise them­selves to such an ex­tent that it is al­most pos­si­ble to be­lieve.”

Alexan­der said crim­i­nals nev­er an­nounce them­selves, but it is ev­i­dence that would un­earth the truth. He ap­pealed to the pub­lic to be more ob­ser­vant of what is tak­ing place in their sur­round­ings.

“Yuh rent­ing a man a house and you don’t know any­thing about the man. You don’t know if the man is a se­r­i­al killer, a rapist, child mo­les­ter or any­thing like that, but you rent­ing him the house.

“You can pay at­ten­tion to peo­ple from a dis­tance. It is a wake-up call for every­one.”

Dis­cussing the po­lice’s ex­e­cu­tion of the ex­er­cise, dubbed Op­er­a­tion Ice­berg, Alexan­der not­ed it com­prised mul­ti­ple agen­cies start­ing in Trinidad with the ar­rest of a De­fence Force mem­ber, Ti­tus Du Bois, on Wednes­day, and then a 26-year-old Venezue­lan woman, Fran­cis Car­oli­na Ren­gel Oje­da, on Fri­day in Scar­bor­ough. Both were held un­der PDOs as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue in­to the sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion of a 17-year-old girl.

Alexan­der laud­ed the pub­lic for shar­ing in­for­ma­tion about sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty and not­ed the co-or­di­nat­ed re­sponse from of­fi­cers.

While po­lice searched Charles’ home on Sat­ur­day, a si­mul­ta­ne­ous ex­er­cise at Chill Out Bar on Mil­ford Road re­sult­ed in five Latin Amer­i­can women, ages 24 to 44, be­ing de­tained. Two were lat­er re­leased af­ter prov­ing their im­mi­gra­tion sta­tus.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, a con­cerned cit­i­zen shop­ping near the pop­u­lar bar said he was not in sup­port of the ex­tend­ed State of Emer­gency (SOE), but he was pleased to see sus­pects ar­rest­ed for traf­fick­ing.

“I don’t con­done such, worse again if is un­der­age peo­ple. If you hold them down un­der duress and have them (locked away) for what­ev­er rea­son, take them and put them away, they to­tal­ly wrong. Don’t hold peo­ple and do them that. Don’t do it,” he said.