An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has re­voked the Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) is­sued against dance­hall artiste Joseph “Medz Boss” Oliviere.

The re­vo­ca­tion, dat­ed Au­gust 24, was pub­lished in yes­ter­day’s Gazette but does not state the grounds on which Oliviere was re­leased.

It comes al­most six months af­ter a PDO was is­sued on March 19 for the ar­rest of the en­ter­tain­er.

Oliviere, of Third Street, Beetham Gar­dens, had been or­dered de­tained at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre in San­ta Rosa by Alexan­der, un­der Para­graph 9 of the Sched­ule to the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions 2026.

The re­vo­ca­tion, al­so is­sued un­der the reg­u­la­tions, states that the “Min­is­ter may re­voke a de­ten­tion or­der at any time.”

“Now, there­fore, I, the Ho­n­ourable Roger Alexan­der, Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, in ex­er­cise of the pow­ers con­ferred on me, do here­by re­voke the de­ten­tion or­der dat­ed the 19th day of March, 2026, made in re­la­tion to the said JOSEPH OLIVIERE of 3rd Street, Beetham Gar­dens,” the no­tice states.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that no ap­pli­ca­tion seek­ing a re­view of Oliviere’s PDO was filed be­fore the State of Emer­gency (SoE) Tri­bunal, which was es­tab­lished to hear chal­lenges from peo­ple de­tained un­der PDOs.

How­ev­er, le­gal sources said a tri­bunal re­view was not re­quired for the or­der to be with­drawn.

“It doesn’t mat­ter whether or not there was a re­view. The min­is­ter can re­voke a PDO when­ev­er he so wish­es. A re­vo­ca­tion isn’t de­pen­dent on the tri­bunal’s rec­om­men­da­tion,” one le­gal source ex­plained.

Sources said on­ly Alexan­der could pro­vide the rea­son for the re­vo­ca­tion. How­ev­er, calls to Alexan­der seek­ing com­ment went unan­swered yes­ter­day.

In the orig­i­nal de­ten­tion or­der, Oliviere was iden­ti­fied as a mem­ber of the Ras­ta City/Sev­en Gang, which was de­scribed as an or­gan­ised crim­i­nal group un­der the An­ti-Gang Act, 2021.

The or­der al­leged the group had ac­cess to high-pow­ered firearms and am­mu­ni­tion and was in­volved in ex­tor­tion, nar­cotics traf­fick­ing, tar­get­ed shoot­ings and the vi­o­lent in­tim­i­da­tion of res­i­dents and ri­val gangs.

It fur­ther al­leged there were vi­o­lent in­ter­nal dis­putes with­in the group and that Oliviere and oth­ers were plan­ning im­mi­nent re­tal­ia­to­ry at­tacks against ri­val gangs in pub­lic spaces us­ing high-pow­ered firearms and high-ve­loc­i­ty am­mu­ni­tion.

Au­thor­i­ties said his de­ten­tion was nec­es­sary to dis­rupt those al­leged plans and pre­vent fur­ther acts con­sid­ered a clear and present threat to pub­lic safe­ty.

Oliviere is known in lo­cal dance­hall cir­cles for songs such as Just Do It and Wel­come 2 Trini­Bad. He re­leased Rags to Rich­es in 2025 and BLUE­CARATS in 2023.

His re­lease comes af­ter a peace ini­tia­tive with­in the lo­cal dance­hall com­mu­ni­ty in­volv­ing Kashif “K-Man” Sankar and Mescach “Plumpy Boss” Em­manuel, who re­cent­ly signed a pact aimed at curb­ing gang vi­o­lence. The agree­ment was re­port­ed­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ed by Alexan­der.

Se­ries of re­vo­ca­tions

Oliviere’s case is the lat­est in a se­ries of PDO re­vo­ca­tions pub­lished in the 2026 Gazette.

The first was busi­ness­man Dan­ny Guer­ra. His PDO, is­sued on No­vem­ber 19, 2025, was re­voked by Alexan­der on Jan­u­ary 2 un­der Le­gal No­tice No. 4 of 2026, which was pub­lished on Jan­u­ary 13.

Guer­ra was lat­er mur­dered on March 13. The 49-year-old busi­ness­man was shot mul­ti­ple times by two masked gun­men while seat­ed in his black Toy­ota Hilux out­side his busi­ness place on Oropouche Road, San­gre Grande.

Pablo Manuel Guer­ra Ri­vas al­so had his PDO re­voked on Ju­ly 31. The re­vo­ca­tion was pub­lished as Le­gal No­tice No. 632 of 2026 on Au­gust 11.

His orig­i­nal de­ten­tion or­der, is­sued on March 19, al­leged that he was a mem­ber of an or­gan­ised crime group in­volved in kid­nap­pings for ran­som and mur­ders.

Af­ter ex­ten­sive le­gal chal­lenges, busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife Genevieve al­so had their de­ten­tion or­ders re­voked.

Do­minic Hadeed’s PDO, which was is­sued on June 27, was re­voked by Alexan­der on Ju­ly 23 un­der Le­gal No­tice No. 650 of 2026.

Genevieve Hadeed’s PDO, al­so is­sued on June 27, was re­voked on the same day un­der Le­gal No­tice No. 651 of 2026.

Their rel­a­tive, Star Sab­ga, re­mains un­der house ar­rest and her PDO has not been re­voked.

New PDOs is­sued

Mean­while, new­ly pub­lished de­ten­tion or­ders have been is­sued for Joshua Bap­tiste, Je­di­ah Jardim, Ka­mau Abe­de Farai and Tes­ly­ma Raf­fick.

Bap­tiste, al­so known as “Goat Head,” is al­leged to be an en­forcer for the Dark Side Gang and is linked to a se­ries of home in­va­sions in Pe­nal, Morne Di­a­blo and Siparia.

Jardim, al­so known as “Ezekiel,” is al­leged to have sup­plied firearms and am­mu­ni­tion to sev­er­al or­gan­ised crime groups. The or­der fur­ther links him to il­le­gal quar­ry­ing and nar­cotics dis­tri­b­u­tion.

Farai, al­so known as “Fari,” is de­scribed as an as­so­ciate of sev­er­al gangs. The or­der al­leges he was in­volved in plans to car­ry out at­tacks and in the mur­ders of two peo­ple in San Fer­nan­do.

Raf­fick, known by sev­er­al alias­es, in­clud­ing “Faith Lawrence” and “Faith,” is de­scribed as the in­ter­im leader of the R Gang op­er­at­ing in La Ro­maine and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties. Ac­cord­ing to the PDO, she as­sumed con­trol of the group af­ter its re­port­ed leader went in­to hid­ing and was co­or­di­nat­ing its ac­tiv­i­ties.

The four PDOs state that the de­ten­tions were nec­es­sary to dis­rupt al­leged plans for vi­o­lence and pre­vent con­duct con­sid­ered prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty.