News
TCI Police still guarded on Gang intel; but who does that profit?
By Deandrea Hamilton and Dana Malcolm
Editorial Staff
#TurksandCaicos, July 3, 2023 – It has been almost a year since the residents of the Turks and Caicos were told that there are gangs operating in their midst; murdering and trafficking in illicit goods yet identifying details on these criminal enterprises are practically non-existent.
We reached out to the Police to learn what they know and why that knowledge it hasn’t been shared with the public, even in part, to increase surveillance and make residents more aware of trends.
Magnetic Media queried who the gangs were and how they identify themselves and how many of the criminal organizations are operating in the country.
The police have replied.
“It would be inappropriate to identify gangs– as to do so would potentially compromise operational activity and alert gang members of the police forces awareness of their criminality making the targeting of them more challenging. However, the RTCIPF are striving to map out the gangs to have a coordinated approach to targeting and disrupting their criminality,” we were told.
Police also told us gang members don’t often overtly identify themselves as part of a specific gang ‘but evolve into a gang or group through their involvement in criminality together and frequent association.’
Despite this, we are told the gangs do identify themselves by name, usually attached to the area in which they operate but these names too, police failed to divulge.
We questioned where these gangs are headquartered, where they frequent and where they recruit young men,
“It would be inappropriate to refer to specific locations that the gangs frequent or operate within and it is often the case that they will commit crime across several geographic locations.”
But this explanation exposes inconsistencies in how information is managed; the police bending their own rules when they want to. Case in point: In 2022 residents were told there were Jamaicans, Haitians and TC Bahamians heading various criminal organizations in the Turks and Caicos resulting in a bloody turf war.
The result was a spike in interest of the crime wave gripping TCI as journalists from around the region and the UK ran talk shows and headlining reports on this murder spree that spared no one. It was a disclosure which also resulted in a multi-country cooperation which eventually quelled the crime and stopped the rampage.
Proof that finger pointing has its benefits.
However, when we asked how many of these gangs were potentially spread out across the country and the size of the criminal camps, we were told, “It would be inappropriate to comment on specific numbers of gangs and the level of membership. However, the police are striving to map and assess the number of gangs and the current assessment is that the potential number of gangs operating in TCI is not exceptionally disproportionate to the population or when compared to other countries.”
Despite TCI being completely average according to Police, on the suspected amount of gangs in the country, those gangs managed to push the small nation to the top of the region (and likely the globe) in terms of murder rate.
In light of the interception of a US shipment of guns bound for the TCI last year, Magnetic Media also tried to find out if there were connections to any overseas gangs who were bankrolling the local criminals but information on that was murky as well though the Police did confirm there was evidence of overseas involvement.
“There is intelligence that would suggest that TCI, like most if not all countries in the region, have a transnational threat about organized crime with inevitable associated financial crime and money laundering.”
Despite the lengthy response, valuable information was missing, denying a nation still traumatized by the events of last year any real insight or confidence that police are vigorously working the angle of crime prevention.