An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Even though the State of Emer­gency (SoE) is due to come to an end on Feb­ru­ary 1, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has con­tin­ued to is­sue Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) for al­leged gang lead­ers, gang mem­bers and their as­so­ciates.

The lat­est batch of PDOs, gazetted on De­cem­ber 17, em­pow­ered law en­force­ment to de­tain Dwight Williams of the Rail­way Road Baddness Gang which op­er­ates in Cal­i­for­nia and Clax­ton Bay; Sean Des Vi­gnes of the St Barb’s fac­tion of the 7 Gang; Mic­ah Caleb George Sam­my of the La Brea and Guapo dis­tricts which re­port­ed­ly has es­tab­lished links to the Re­sis­tance Gang; and Or­lan­do By­er who was iden­ti­fied as one of the core armed en­forcers with­in the ABG/8 "E-Block" gang op­er­at­ing in Par­adise Heights, Mor­vant.

The four were said to be mem­bers of or­gan­ised crim­i­nal groups (OCG) or gangs, which fell with­in the de­f­i­n­i­tion of the An­ti-Gang Act, 2021.

The PDOs were is­sued pur­suant to Reg­u­la­tion 14 of the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2025, which states that the ac­cused peo­ple in­tend to act in a man­ner prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty.

Williams was iden­ti­fied as a mem­ber and key gang op­er­a­tive of the Rail­way Road Baddness Gang, which is re­spon­si­ble for drug move­ment and the plan­ning of armed in­tim­i­da­tion in ex­pan­sion ter­ri­to­ries such as Cal­i­for­nia and Clax­ton Bay.

Ac­cord­ing to his PDO, "He is con­sid­ered a trust­ed ac­tor who helps fa­cil­i­tate crim­i­nal ac­tions across the South­ern Di­vi­sion."

Des Vi­gnes was iden­ti­fied as a mem­ber of the St Barb’s fac­tion of the 7 Gang, which was la­belled a "vi­o­lent crim­i­nal net­work with a firm­ly es­tab­lished op­er­a­tional base in Laven­tille and Port-of-Spain."

He was re­port­ed­ly seen con­duct­ing sur­veil­lance two days be­fore the rob­bery of the Sev­en-11 Casi­no in Ju­ly.

Ac­cord­ing to his PDO, "Des Vi­gnes and re­lat­ed per­sons are be­lieved to be in­volved in a se­ries of co­or­di­nat­ed, firearm-en­abled rob­beries, tac­ti­cal gang op­er­a­tions and planned crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, which pose an im­me­di­ate and sig­nif­i­cant threat to pub­lic safe­ty and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty."

Sam­my’s PDO cred­i­bly iden­ti­fied him as a mem­ber of a gang op­er­at­ing in the La Brea and Guapo dis­tricts, with es­tab­lished links to the Re­sis­tance Gang.

Sam­my was la­belled an en­forcer and shoot­er for his gang, with re­port­ed ac­cess to a cache of high-pow­ered firearms.

By­er was iden­ti­fied as one of the core armed en­forcers with­in the ABG/8 "E-Block" gang, op­er­at­ing at Par­adise Heights in Mor­vant.

His PDO claimed he, along with oth­ers, had ac­cess to "a cache of high-pow­ered firearms."

"This con­duct in­cludes forc­ing vul­ner­a­ble oc­cu­pants to aban­don their homes, en­gag­ing in ex­tor­tion backed by threats of lethal harm and mov­ing about with il­le­gal firearms through­out Build­ings C, D and E to main­tain ter­ri­to­r­i­al con­trol."