The seizure of 1,560 kilo­grammes of mar­i­jua­na in the Ca­roni Swamp, with an es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of over $171 mil­lion, is a sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ment for the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

It demon­strates that in­tel­li­gence-led polic­ing, com­bined with mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy, can make a tan­gi­ble dif­fer­ence in the fight against drug traf­fick­ing.

That this suc­cess was re­port­ed­ly guid­ed by the US-in­stalled radar at Crown Point, To­ba­go, adds a crit­i­cal lay­er to the dis­cus­sion: the grow­ing role of ad­vanced sur­veil­lance in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

The op­er­a­tion it­self was no small feat.

Of­fi­cers from the Mul­ti-Op­tion Po­lice Sec­tion (MOPS), Coastal and Air Sup­port Unit (CA­SU), Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU), and oth­er tac­ti­cal and in­tel­li­gence teams nav­i­gat­ed harsh man­grove ter­rain overnight to re­cov­er the stashed car­go.

Their work, de­scribed by CA­SU In­spec­tor Ron­ny Ram­pal­lard as car­ried out in “ex­treme­ly harsh ter­rain, hos­tile ter­ri­to­ry,” high­lights the ded­i­ca­tion and courage of the men and women on the ground. Col­lab­o­ra­tion—lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al—was cru­cial, and all in­volved de­serve com­men­da­tion.

Yet, the pub­lic re­sponse to both the radar in­stal­la­tion and the seizure has been mixed, rais­ing ques­tions about trans­paren­cy and op­er­a­tional se­cu­ri­ty.

Crit­ics have not­ed that the radar’s in­stal­la­tion, con­duct­ed with US sup­port, fu­elled con­cerns over sov­er­eign­ty and its po­ten­tial strate­gic use.

Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance leader Nor­man Din­di­al ques­tioned the radar’s role in this spe­cif­ic seizure, while for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith warned that pub­li­cis­ing op­er­a­tional suc­cess could tip off crim­i­nal el­e­ments and com­pro­mise fu­ture op­er­a­tions.

These cri­tiques mer­it at­ten­tion. Na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty re­quires a care­ful bal­ance be­tween trans­paren­cy and dis­cre­tion. Pub­li­cis­ing the radar’s suc­cess may re­as­sure cit­i­zens that tech­nol­o­gy is be­ing de­ployed ef­fec­tive­ly, but it risks re­veal­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties and meth­ods that crim­i­nals could ex­ploit.

At the same time, the seizure is a con­crete re­minder of why such tech­nol­o­gy is nec­es­sary.

Tech­nol­o­gy alone, how­ev­er, can­not solve crime. Po­lice have con­tin­u­al­ly made calls on mem­bers of the pub­lic to as­sist by pro­vid­ing in­for­ma­tion crit­i­cal to the de­tec­tion of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

Drug traf­fick­ing, arms smug­gling, and oth­er il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties re­main per­sis­tent threats to pub­lic safe­ty. The re­sponse re­quires a more holis­tic role from all in so­ci­ety.

The Crown Point radar is a tool—one of many—that en­hances the TTPS’s abil­i­ty to de­tect, track, and in­ter­cept crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, ul­ti­mate­ly pro­tect­ing com­mu­ni­ties.

Its suc­cess in the Ca­roni Swamp should be ac­knowl­edged, cel­e­brat­ed, and stud­ied as a mod­el for in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven polic­ing, even as de­bates over trans­paren­cy and gov­er­nance con­tin­ue.

The chal­lenge now is to strike the right bal­ance: to lever­age ad­vanced tools for law en­force­ment while main­tain­ing pub­lic trust and safe­guard­ing op­er­a­tional se­cu­ri­ty. Seizures like the one in Ca­roni Swamp are vic­to­ries not just for the TTPS but for the na­tion.

Yet, they al­so un­der­score the need for care­ful over­sight. In the fight against crime, tech­nol­o­gy is on­ly as ef­fec­tive as the in­sti­tu­tions, poli­cies, and pub­lic con­fi­dence that guide its use. T&T has tak­en a promis­ing step for­ward.

The radar seizure demon­strates what is pos­si­ble when in­tel­li­gence, tech­nol­o­gy, and co­or­di­na­tion come to­geth­er. But suc­cess will be mea­sured not on­ly by the ar­rests and seizures made, but by the in­tegri­ty and trans­paren­cy with which the TTPS con­tin­ues to op­er­ate.