Well done by FIU

THE RAID by members of the Firearms Interdiction Unit (FIU) on a house at Rousillac in south Trinidad on Wednesday evening must confirm widespread suspicions that Venezuela is one of the main sources of illegal firearms and narcotics being smuggled into the country. It underscores the urgent need for comprehensive surveillance of the seas separating our two countries and we can only hope that the relevant measures announced by Prime Minister Manning about two months ago are now well into the process of implementation. The arsenal of sophisticated weapons, together with the large amount of high-grade cocaine and compressed marijuana allegedly seized by FIU officers at the Rousillac house, make up a lethal and frightening cargo which was clearly intended for the criminal underworld and drug traffickers in our country.

The “shipment”, we are told, included Mach 1, Mach 10 and Mach 11 machine guns, a Smith and Wesson handgun, two .380 pistols, three 9mm handguns with six magazines, two AK 47 magazines, a live hand grenade and eight types of ammunition totalling 347 rounds. The fact that this collection of arms and ammunition and amount of cocaine and marijuana did not get to their ultimate destination is due to the excellent work of the FIU team of officers, led by Supt Errol Dillon and ASP Chandraban Maharaj, who deserve to be commended for their timely intervention which must have involved the kind of intelligence gathering we would like to see operating in other divisions of the country’s crime fighting force. In fact, FIU members seem to be setting a dynamic and reassuring lead in the fight against crime as can also be seen in their recovery of the Galil assault rifle which had been missing from Camp Ogden more than a week ago. The high-powered rapid-fire rifle used by our soldiers was found by FIU officers at a house in D’Abadie on Saturday.

On the Rousillac raid, it is reported that three Venezuelan women with links to Trinidad were held by the FIU party  which, if true, would tell us clearly from where the illegal “cargo” originated. What exactly is the extent of this Venezuelan connection we have no idea but, judging from the size of the Rousillac seizure and the proliferation of guns among bandits and criminal gangs, it seems to represent quite a considerable business. We hope that FIU investigators will be able to exploit the Rousillac breakthrough to further fracture this illegal trade. The most effective way of severing this dangerous connection, however, is by a comprehensive inter-active system of surveillance and interdiction covering the seas surrounding our twin-island country, especially over the channel separating Trinidad and Venezuela.

To achieve this objective, we hope to see by the end of the year the implementation of at least some of the security measures announced by Prime Minister Manning about two months ago. These include a state-of-the-art radar system to boost surveillance of the country’s coastlines and air space, more patrol boats to ply our territorial waters and a fleet of helicopters with attack capabilities which would deal with high speed craft used to transport drugs from the South American mainland. But we know that not only drugs but guns and ammunition and other weapons of war such as hand grenades are also coming into TT from that source. Protecting our country from “invaders” dealing in that nefarious double trade, drugs and guns, is long overdue.