UK flags T&T gangs

Jensen La Vende and

Da­reece Po­lo

In­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions lec­tur­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Dr Michal Paw­in­s­ki, be­lieves the lat­est re­port from the Unit­ed King­dom on gangs in Trinidad and To­ba­go places the coun­try in a neg­a­tive light.

Paw­in­s­ki said yes­ter­day that this re­port, cou­pled with last year’s visa re­stric­tions im­posed on the coun­try af­ter the num­ber of asy­lum seek­ers to the UK grew ex­po­nen­tial­ly, does not help the coun­try’s im­age.

The re­port was pub­lished on June 5 by UK Visas and Im­mi­gra­tion as part of its Coun­try Pol­i­cy and In­for­ma­tion Note se­ries and was de­signed pri­mar­i­ly to as­sist British of­fi­cials in eval­u­at­ing asy­lum ap­pli­ca­tions.

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. The as­sess­ment es­ti­mates that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 186 gangs were op­er­at­ing in T&T as of 2023, with a com­bined mem­ber­ship of around 1,750 mem­bers. It linked those or­gan­ised crim­i­nal groups to rough­ly one-third of all mur­ders and in­volve­ment in a wide range of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing kid­nap­pings, armed rob­beries, ex­tor­tion, hu­man traf­fick­ing and the il­le­gal firearms trade.

Among the most in­flu­en­tial groups iden­ti­fied were the Mus­lims and Ras­ta City gangs, which the re­port said serve as ma­jor pow­er cen­tres around which small­er gangs of­ten align.

Asked how this lat­est up­date may im­pact the coun­try’s im­age, Paw­in­s­ki said: “There is con­nec­tion be­tween the gang ac­tiv­i­ty in Trinidad and how oth­er coun­tries are de­cid­ing on im­pos­ing fur­ther re­stric­tions, which is neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ing the im­age of Trinidad as a po­ten­tial­ly un­sta­ble coun­try that is un­able to man­age their in­ter­nal se­cu­ri­ty.”

Even with the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE), which the coun­try has been un­der with less than a month’s break in be­tween since Ju­ly last year, specif­i­cal­ly called to ad­dress gang vi­o­lence, Paw­in­s­ki says that may not be enough.

“Some­thing that would po­ten­tial­ly re­pair the im­age, the in­ter­na­tion­al im­age of Trinidad, is a more com­pre­hen­sive strat­e­gy that is deal­ing with the caus­es of the crime and youth join­ing the gangs. That would be more speak­ing to ac­tions that are mit­i­gat­ing the sit­u­a­tion. The SoE is just ba­si­cal­ly a Band-Aid on a huge wound that is not heal­ing.”

In a me­dia re­port last De­cem­ber in The Times, it was re­vealed that asy­lum claims from T&T na­tion­als rose from an an­nu­al av­er­age of 49 be­tween 2015 and 2019 to 439 that year. A UK gov­ern­ment spokesper­son was at the time re­port­ed to have told the news­pa­per that a new re­quire­ment was im­posed to ad­dress the grow­ing trend of peo­ple ar­riv­ing as tourists and then claim­ing asy­lum.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad agrees with Paw­in­s­ki, say­ing if peo­ple who may be in­volved in gang ac­tiv­i­ty flock to the UK un­der the guise of need­ing asy­lum, then their ri­vals may fol­low them, ex­port­ing the coun­try’s prob­lem to the UK.

“Gang mem­bers, quite of­ten when they go in­to a new coun­try, they have a propen­si­ty to en­gage in crime, they might grav­i­tate to­wards crim­i­nal groups, so, of course, it’s a neg­a­tive thing for the re­ceiv­ing coun­try, and then the ri­val­ries that ex­ist­ed, you know, could be sort of re­pro­duced in the re­ceiv­ing coun­try.”

He said gang­sters want­i­ng to mi­grate and lat­er claim­ing asy­lum weak­en a coun­try’s im­age, which may force coun­tries to im­pose new laws.

“I wouldn’t hon­est­ly be sur­prised if even­tu­al­ly, this leads to some kind of change in the laws when it comes to asy­lum in the Unit­ed King­dom, to kind of, for want of a bet­ter word, close that loop­hole, be­cause my sense from some of the re­ports I’ve seen com­ing out of the UK is that the Home Of­fice is push­ing back re­al hard in terms of let­ting any­body in when they come, and they are fear­ful of gangs,” Seep­er­sad said.

The UK re­port stat­ed that just be­ing from ar­eas where gangs have con­trol of the com­mu­ni­ties or be­ing fear­ful of a gang’s at­tack is not enough to war­rant asy­lum.

And while some may be hop­ing that an im­pend­ing change in lead­er­ship in Lon­don could pave the way for eas­i­er ac­cess to the Unit­ed King­dom, a for­mer For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry tech­no­crat, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, be­lieves that hope may be mis­placed.

The for­mer of­fi­cial told Guardian Me­dia that Britain’s im­mi­gra­tion poli­cies are shaped less by in­di­vid­ual politi­cians and more by long-term in­sti­tu­tion­al pri­or­i­ties, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty as­sess­ments and pub­lic sen­ti­ment. In that con­text, the res­ig­na­tion of a prime min­is­ter is un­like­ly to trig­ger a sig­nif­i­cant change in how T&T is viewed by British au­thor­i­ties.

British Prime Min­is­ter Sir Keir Starmer’s res­ig­na­tion on Mon­day fu­elled spec­u­la­tion about whether the UK’s im­mi­gra­tion poli­cies could be soft­ened un­der a new Labour leader.

The for­mer tech­no­crat be­lieves the lat­est as­sess­ment is un­like­ly to strength­en T&T’s case for a re­view of those re­stric­tions.

Guardian Me­dia al­so sub­mit­ted ques­tions to the British High Com­mis­sion re­gard­ing the po­ten­tial im­pli­ca­tions of Starmer’s res­ig­na­tion and whether Britain’s po­si­tion on T&T could change un­der a new prime min­is­ter.

While an of­fi­cial re­sponse is still pend­ing, a source fa­mil­iar with the mat­ter said a change in lead­er­ship would not like­ly al­ter ex­ist­ing im­mi­gra­tion poli­cies in the short term.

In a What­sApp re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia on the re­port yes­ter­day, De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge said that is­sue did not hap­pen overnight.

“That is the cul­mi­na­tion of 10 years of in­ac­tion on the part of the last ad­min­is­tra­tion. The Gov­ern­ment has shown that it is up to the task and hav­ing been aware of these facts, we have tak­en steps to pri­ori­tise gang-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence and we will con­tin­ue to take steps to deal specif­i­cal­ly with the in­flu­ence and im­pact of gang vi­o­lence.”

Cari­com and For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers and for­mer min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne did not re­spond to ques­tions up to press time.

Mean­while, for­mer diplo­mat and min­is­ter Rod­ney Charles said this sit­u­a­tion should be a wake-up call for the Gov­ern­ment. In a What­sApp re­sponse, Charles said the UK has now de­cid­ed to cod­i­fy who from T&T can and can­not ap­ply for refugee sta­tus.

“T&T must de­vel­op and rig­or­ous­ly en­force as a top pri­or­i­ty, a well-thought-out refugee/mi­gra­tion pol­i­cy that is con­sis­tent with our ab­sorp­tive ca­pac­i­ty, our in­ter­na­tion­al treaty oblig­a­tions, our hu­man­i­tar­i­an prin­ci­ples and our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­sid­er­a­tions. We de­lay this at our per­il,” he said.

“We can­not, for ex­am­ple, as we have done and are still do­ing, let in any and every refugee who lands on our shores with­out ap­pro­pri­ate vet­ting based on agreed prin­ci­ples. The UK is prob­a­bly telling us with­out ac­tu­al­ly say­ing so, that the time for a lais­sez-faire refugee pol­i­cy by T&T is long gone.”

He said the re­port comes as im­mi­gra­tion is now a ma­jor po­lit­i­cal is­sue among vot­ers in the UK, the EU, Cana­da and the US, adding that Starmer de­vel­oped tough im­mi­gra­tion poli­cies that seemed to have alien­at­ed his own par­ty base.

One of the re­port’s more trou­bling find­ings con­cerns youth re­cruit­ment. It said 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 12 and 16 years, 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 T&T pos­sess­es an­ti-gang leg­is­la­tion and spe­cialised po­lice units ded­i­cat­ed to com­bat­ing or­gan­ised crime, it raised con­cerns about the ca­pac­i­ty of law en­force­ment to ef­fec­tive­ly con­tain the threat.

Cit­ing in­for­ma­tion from the Unit­ed Na­tions Of­fice on Drugs and Crime, the re­port says se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials have ad­mit­ted to 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 T&T 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 stopped short of de­scrib­ing T&T as a state over­whelmed by or­gan­ised crime. It con­clud­ed 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.