BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – Drug trafficking, firearms smuggling, and gang violence are all widely acknowledged by government leaders as a serious and growing problem in the Caribbean.
But according to a United Nations report, these issues have been singled out as constituting regional and national security threats in successive Caribbean Community (CARICOM) reports and declarations for the past decade.
The report titled “Caribbean Gangs: Drugs, Firearms and Gangs Networks in Jamaica, St Lucia, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago,” notes that drug and firearms seizures and profile gang killings are a regular feature of media reporting across the region.
The report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said the underlying correlates – including youth unemployment, income and social inequality, poor education, and family breakdown – are widely acknowledged.
Meanwhile, proximate risk factors such as drug trafficking, arms availability, and persistent gang tensions are increasingly well understood.
Conversely, there is insufficient knowledge regarding what occurs to the proceeds of these crimes throughout the region, and how gangs diversify into technology-facilitated crimes, said the report which was released recently.
It said that multiple parallel drug markets are operating across the Eastern and Western Caribbean.
“First, there are high volume, low risk, offshore markets involving the transshipment of cocaine from South America to North America and Western Europe. These drug shipments involve transnational drug trafficking networks and a small number of gangs and are facilitated by corrupt customs and shipping agents with involvement of some political and economic elite.
“Second, there are an array of smaller volume, higher risk, inland markets involving cannabis and to a lesser extent cocaine for local consumption, including by residents and tourists. The latter is facilitated by gang members and migrants, usually as part of an ant-trade involving small fishing boats.”
The UN report notes that as in the case of drugs, there are also several parallel firearms markets that operate across the Eastern and Western Caribbean.
First, there are markets integrated with drug trafficking, with weapons often “traded” for drugs or sold on to local markets after drugs “pass through” countries. Second, there are markets linked directly to the United States, and to a lesser extent Venezuela that are intended to supply gangs directly.
“Weapons may be sent directly in consignments or through “ant trade” and via islands. In the latter case, weapons are procured in the US via straw man purchases or, in the case of Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, acquired via Venezuela from both state and non-state sources.”
The report found that both drug and arms trafficking markets and corridors are dynamic and responsive to external shocks across the Eastern and Western Caribbean.
It said large consignments of cocaine are shipped from Colombia via several routes, including Venezuela, Guyana, and Suriname, before moving northward directly or indirectly to Curacao, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Lucia, Martinique, St Vincent and the Grenadines,
“In some cases, large shipments may be broken down into smaller units to evade detection. The trade in cannabis tends to be more distributed from smaller islands – where production costs are lower – to Trinidad and Tobago and from Jamaica to other islands and onward to North American and Western European jurisdictions.”
The UN report notes that the Caribbean features a complex system of interconnected criminal markets that require comprehensive global, regional, and national responses. Guyana, for example, increasingly serves as a hub for drug trafficking into the Eastern Caribbean that not only involves powerful Colombian, Venezuelan, and Brazilian criminal factions but also cartels and mafia from Mexico, Italy, and Spain.
Meanwhile, Trinidad and Tobago and St. Lucia are serving as transit countries for cocaine -and a source country for cannabis in the case of Trinidad and Tobago-, while Jamaica serves as a node for the transit of both cocaine and cannabis via the Western Caribbean to neighboring countries and clients further afield.
The report said Caribbean, US, and EU-backed measures to crack down on gang leadership are also generating unintended outcomes. Some gang leaders lower their profile and go underground while others are killed or imprisoned and replaced with evermore violent contenders. As seen elsewhere in the world, gang splintering tends to be violence generating.
The report notes that several national governments across the CARICOM region have expressed concerned that drug trafficking, gang fragmentation, and insecurity could worsen in the coming years.
It said disruptions of traditional drug routes in Central and South America is intensifying pressure on small island states with very modest maritime, aviation, and terrestrial capacities to close criminal markets.
“Sensing opportunity, some dormant criminal networks are reactivating across the Caribbean region. As a result, there are a significant number of str
“Yet most governments consulted have limited resources for tackling the interconnected threats posed by organized crime. Owing to limited police, justice, penal and customs capabilities, even a comparatively modest flow of drugs and firearms can prove to be immensely destabilizing,” said the report.
It said nevertheless, a growing array of regional, national, and subnational initiatives are being pursued to disrupt gang-related activities, including their involvement in drug markets. At one end of the continuum are military and police-led security responses that often combine intelligence, armed forces, and law enforcement assets.
Interventions can span multiple countries and jurisdictions and involve the sharing of information and coordinated activities to degrade criminal markets and apprehend crime leaders.
At the other end of the continuum are crime prevention measures to strengthen the rule of law and target hot-spot areas and at-risk young people. These latter efforts typically involve public authorities and non-governmental organizations in partnership with bilateral, multilateral, and philanthropic groups.
The report acknowledges that the surge in criminal violence in parts of the Caribbean is hastening regional cooperation on controlling firearms.
It said a CARICOM crime summit held in Trinidad and Tobago in April 2023, for example, emphasized the importance of strengthening regional cooperation to fight crime and violence, underlining the importance of “public health” focused responses.
“CARICOM also stressed the specific role of criminal gangs, drugs, and firearms, calling for improved forensic capacities and sharing of data, upgrading of criminal justice systems, a renewed focus on at-risk young people, and legal action against US firearms manufacturers and retailers
“Stressing their concern, leaders from across the region announced a “war on guns” focusing on firearms trafficked from the US,272 and CARICOM, established a Crime Gun Intelligence Unit with ties to US law enforcement agencies. Caribbean officials have also stressed the importance not just of supply, but also demand reduction programs, including through mediation initiatives.
The report said that regional cooperation with the US has expanded in recent years. One initiative, the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CSBI), sought to apply a comprehensive approach to gang violence prevention and reduction.
Amid growing pressure from Caribbean countries, the US has likewise stepped-up cooperation to prioritize the disruption of illicit firearms trafficking.
Working with CARICOM, the US reaffirmed commitment to implement the Caribbean Firearms Trafficking Priority Actions developed under the CBSI. In the US, a Bipartisan Safer Communities Act was signed in 2022 to increase penalties on straw purchasers and US-sourced firearms trafficking.
And in 2023, the US Department of Justice appointed a Coordinator for Caribbean Firearms Prosecutions to elevate firearms trafficking investigations.
The US is also a core supporter of the Caribbean Crime Gun Intelligence Unit (CCGIU), with the objective to share intelligence across law enforcement agencies, seize firearms and identify, charge, and prosecute co-conspirators for firearms related crimes, and expand ATF training initiatives
“While advocating for crime prevention and public health approaches in regional fora, several Caribbean governments have simultaneously stepped up their “tough on crime” responses. For example, the St. Lucian authorities have scaled their crime prevention operations though appear to be severely tested by well resourced criminal networks.
The RSLPF (Royal St. Lucia Police Force) is primarily responsible for law and order and has a comparatively high level of public trust (though instances of police brutality are noted). It oversees the Drug Squad and Marine Unit – which along with Customs and Ports Police, are focused on disrupting trafficking in and via St. Lucia. However, these groups have weak maritime capabilities, limited funding, and poor intelligence.
Likewise, the Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago governments have dramatically expanded their gang suppression activities over the past decade.
Jamaican authorities issued the Gang Suppression Act in 2014 but this resulted in just two convictions by 2019.276 Amendments in 2021 broadened the definition of gangs, allowing police to charge those assisting gangs, and added extra protections for witnesses.277 Jamaica has also imposed several “states of emergency” and conducted a number of military and police operations, most recently Operation Relentless in April 2023.
Meanwhile, Trinidad and Tobago signed an Anti-Gang Act in 2011 -and an Anti-Gang Bill in 2021- to criminalize gangs and allow the arrest, without a warrant, of anyone reasonably believed to be affiliated.
The police also recently launched the gang reduction and community empowerment (GRACE) project (funded by US INL) to build trust in communities wracked by gang and police-related violence.
The report stated that in the wake of spectacular drug interdictions and mounting international pressure, Guyanese authorities have taken steps to improve regional cooperation, including counter-narcotics, anti-gang and anti-money laundering activities.
For example, Guyana joined the Regional Security System (RSS) Asset Recovery Interagency Network of the Caribbean and the country’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) signed bilateral agreements to support intelligence gathering.
Likewise, port control programs have been inaction for over a decade. Recent examples of partnership include enhanced support from the US and UNODC to expand security in ports through enhanced oversight of containers and training of port control units, coast guard, and members of the GPF, GRA, CANU, and MARAD.
However, according to recent evaluation from the OAS, Guyana does not adequately implement actions to identify organized crime groups involved in drug trafficking and related crime.
“What is more, it has only limited participation in operations and investigations with other countries to dismantle organized crime groups involved in drug trafficking and related crimes.
“Previously, Guyana formed a task force to target a specific group, the Five for Freedom, which was comprised of escaped prisoners.286 Guyana started drafting but never implemented anti-gang legislation
“Guyanese law enforcement has limited capacity to police its expansive border; criminal activity in the rural communities may remain a problem. It is unknown how Venezuela’s recent attempt to claim western Guyana will impact criminal activity in the area,” the report noted.
It said the results of these and other measures are uneven.
“On the one hand, they have resulted in significant arrests and mixed outcomes in terms of drug seizures. Since 2022, for example, the Jamaican authorities have arrested close to 150 gang leaders and strengthened measures to reduce arms flows.
“In 2023, the authorities convicted 15 people of gang membership and firearms possession for murder. Measures to arrest Trinidadian and Tobago gang leaders have also expanded dramatically.
“On the other hand, the removal of gang leaders has also resulted in the splintering of many gangs and increased inter- and intra-factional violence as groups compete over territory and drug trafficking routes.
“Heavy-handed measures to tackle criminal groups such as drug cartels and gangs can trigger increased violence, as in the case of Trinidad and Tobago. In 2021, for example, Trinidad and Tobago’s strategic services agency (SSA) predicted a new violent crime wave due to the fragmentation of key gangs that would lead to an “increase in murders, injuries, shootings and other violent crimes”.
The report notes that Trinidadian gangs have not only diversified into new business, from fraud and money laundering to robbery, human smuggling, and illegal gambling, they are also accessing higher caliber firearms, from domestic sources as well as from the US and Venezuela
The report said a range of preventive measures, including ceasefires, truces, and informal negotiations, have also been explored in the Caribbean.
In some cases, truces appear to contribute to short-term reductions in homicide, however the evidence on their effectiveness is mixed. Preventive approaches that deploy trusted intermediaries to disrupt or interrupt violence before it escalates are credited with positive outcomes.
Cure Violence, a group that treats violence as a public health problem, has demonstrated positive outcomes in both Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. The so-called Project Resolve Enmity, Articulate Solutions, Organize Neighborhoods (REASON) initiative was supported between 2015 and 2017 in Trinidad and Tobago and is credited with reducing homicides by 45 percent in 16 neighborhoods.
However, funding was discontinued in 2017. A follow-up programme called Building Blocks also reduced shootouts between 2020-2022 but was discontinued in 2022. By contrast, gangled truces and ceasefires are typically more reactive: while they may temporarily reduce fighting, these agreements are frequently violated and are followed by rapid increases in retributive violence,” the report stated.
