RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Days af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced the es­tab­lish­ment of a Caribbean Gangs Data­base, re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Garvin Heer­ah has said a Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tion (CBI) is al­so need­ed to com­bat transna­tion­al crime.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia, Heer­ah said in the face of the per­va­sive in­flu­ence of gangs across the Caribbean, the CBI was ur­gent­ly need­ed. He out­lined how the CBI could act as a cen­tralised in­tel­li­gence shar­ing and in­ves­tiga­tive body fo­cused on dis­man­tling crim­i­nal net­works.

Heer­ah al­so not­ed the im­por­tance of tar­get­ing transna­tion­al crimes such as nar­cotics traf­fick­ing, hu­man traf­fick­ing, firearms smug­gling, cy­ber­crime, and mon­ey laun­der­ing.

“Crim­i­nal en­ter­pris­es have be­come in­creas­ing­ly so­phis­ti­cat­ed, lever­ag­ing tech­nol­o­gy, ex­ploit­ing porous bor­ders, and cre­at­ing re­gion­al net­works that un­der­mine pub­lic safe­ty, gov­er­nance, and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty. To counter these threats ef­fec­tive­ly, Cari­com mem­ber states must uni­fy un­der a sin­gle, ro­bust, and cen­tralised in­ves­tiga­tive body,” Heer­ah stat­ed.

He stressed the im­por­tance of part­ner­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions like In­ter­pol and the FBI to adopt glob­al best prac­tices. 

“The in­te­gra­tion of tech­nol­o­gy would al­low for ad­vanced crime map­ping, pre­dic­tive polic­ing, and more ef­fec­tive re­source al­lo­ca­tion. Fur­ther­more, col­lab­o­ra­tion with in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners would en­able ac­cess to spe­cialised train­ing, in­tel­li­gence data­bas­es, and op­er­a­tional sup­port, en­sur­ing that the bu­reau re­mains at the fore­front of glob­al ef­forts to com­bat or­gan­ised crime,” Heer­ah said.

He al­so high­light­ed the bu­reau’s po­ten­tial role in com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment and coun­ter­ing the ap­peal of gang cul­ture through ed­u­ca­tion, re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, and pub­lic aware­ness cam­paigns.

“This sends a pow­er­ful mes­sage to the cit­i­zens of Cari­com na­tions: that their gov­ern­ments are com­mit­ted to a safe, se­cure, and pros­per­ous re­gion. The time to act is now be­fore crim­i­nal el­e­ments fur­ther en­trench them­selves and ex­ploit our vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties,” Heer­ah urged.

He said the pro­posed data­base and a po­ten­tial CBI rep­re­sent­ed a col­lec­tive push for stronger, more uni­fied re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures in the face of grow­ing crim­i­nal so­phis­ti­ca­tion.

For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith wel­comed the Caribbean Gangs Data­base as a nec­es­sary tool to ad­dress re­gion­al crim­i­nal net­works. Grif­fith de­scribed the data­base as piv­otal to com­bat­ing or­gan­ised crime.

“Any amal­ga­ma­tion of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices, shar­ing of in­tel­li­gence, and prop­er in­for­ma­tion to en­sure suc­cess­ful op­er­a­tions will al­ways be a ben­e­fi­cial fac­tor to­ward crime re­duc­tion and peg­ging back crim­i­nal el­e­ments. Any­one who has an is­sue with this rec­om­men­da­tion is like­ly sym­pa­thet­ic to crim­i­nal el­e­ments,” Grif­fith stat­ed.

He added that the val­ue of the data­base ex­tend­ed be­yond track­ing the move­ment of crim­i­nal el­e­ments and gang in­tel­li­gence across Caribbean coun­tries. It would al­so ad­dress fi­nan­cial crimes, in­clud­ing the trans­fer of funds and wire trans­ac­tions.

“Where we have the FIU in Trinidad and To­ba­go, this will as­sist our FIU in es­tab­lish­ing eas­i­er di­a­logue with oth­er arms of law en­force­ment to ad­dress the prob­lem of crim­i­nals trans­fer­ring funds from one coun­try to an­oth­er through covert means. This will sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­pact white-col­lar crime,” Grif­fith ex­plained.

He fur­ther rec­om­mend­ed the es­tab­lish­ment of a re­gion­al op­er­a­tional com­mand cen­tre to mon­i­tor the move­ment of crim­i­nal el­e­ments across Cari­com.

Speak­ing dur­ing Cari­com’s sec­ond re­gion­al sym­po­sium, Vi­o­lence as a Pub­lic Health Is­sue, re­cent­ly held in George­town, Guyana, Dr Row­ley re­vealed that “the Caribbean Gang Data­base will be a key re­source for law en­force­ment.”

He al­so an­nounced the pas­sage of the Cari­com Ar­rest War­rant Bill, which seeks to har­monise ex­tra­di­tion pro­ce­dures among par­tic­i­pat­ing na­tions.