STATEMENT FROM THE TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL (NSC)

Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands, 24^th January 2025 – The National Security Council continues to be seized of the operational response to secure the safety of our communities. The National Security Council condemns strongly the violence that is afflicting our communities. We extend our deepest sympathies to the families and friends of all those affected by these traumatic events.

The Hon. Premier and I convened a meeting of the National Security Council this afternoon to confirm the ongoing response. Operation Mightier goes into effect today – this is a multi-agency operation with the police, regiment and border force to drive efforts that detect, disrupt and dismantle criminality across our islands. Since October 2024, the TCI Government has in deployment, thirteen contracted former UK police officers – eight armed officers to support the police tactical team and five intelligence and investigative officers; which has provided critical investigative and operational uplifts.

Following discussions with the UK Minister, they will now be joined by an immediate deployment of a further twelve contracted armed officers funded by the UK Government, doubling our tactical team to provide critical resilience and capability. To fortify our capacity, following discussions with regional partners, we have worked to secure secondments for up to thirty specialist armed officers. This will take us to a complement of fifty additional armed officers, while the police recruit seventy-five new ran and file positions approved by Cabinet for expedited recruitment. Additional support has also been approved for the TCI Regiment.

In addition, the UK Government is funding aerial support to bolster policing and border security operations. These initiatives will help cauterize the immediacy of the threats we face, providing critical strength to our arsenal and upsurge in our tactical response.

We are not just focused on the short term. The National Security Council is working to develop long-term resilience by creating a unified command structure of law enforcement agencies and joint intelligence to analyze criminality. This revised approach will consider the drivers and enablers of crime and will enhance our intelligence posture and create unified action to tackle the drivers and enablers of crime.

We assure you every effort is being made to deter criminal activity, bring perpetrators to justice and to secure our streets and borders.

May God bless you and may God continue to bless our beautiful by nature Islands.