The Underworld Mix

January 22, 2018 Crime , OTHER

Reuters photo

By

Ricardo Swire

Caribbean intelligence data catalogues how Mexican cartels exercise hegemonic control of the Caribbean archipelago’s violent drug trade. Mexican cartels have embraced the Caribbean underworld and infused a “Narco-Trafficking” social order. Local drug traffickers accept drugs as “currency” for logistical services payment. The Mexican cartels provide participating islanders with cocaine trafficking franchises that supply select European and North American markets. Trinidad & Tobago is second to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic as transhipment hubs.

Riches and popularity of drug/firearms trafficking via the Caribbean Basin are illustrated by the emergence of street gangs such as Los Trintarios, Zoe Pound and MS-13 originally formed in America. The gangs marry American activity to Caribbean Basin operations to service Mexican cartels. One United Nations Drug Control Program (UNDCP) report estimated US$50 billion worth of drug money is laundered across the Caribbean yearly. Illegal small arms shipments, dispatched from Honduras, are sold along the Caribbean island chain. A criminal backlash and response to law enforcement’s shutdown of the previously abundant Venezuelan weapons supply.

T&T’s geographical position north of the equator pins the Twin Island Republic between cocaine producers/distributors who supply North American and European consumers. There is a known nexus between Narco-Trafficking and gang culture on Caribbean islands. Increased gun violence and murders the new normal. In 2004 Mexican criminal syndicates started an “arms war” that spread from north to south, blanketing Guatemala and Honduras. Romanian made semi-automatic WSRA-10, or cheap and sturdy “knockoff” AK47, is the favorite. Its killing potential demonstrated by Sinaloa, Cullacan and Cuernavaca, Morelos street gangs in Mexico.

The American company Century International Arms import “Cuerno de Chivo” or “Goat’s Horn” 5.56mm semi-automatic rifles directly from Romanian factories. The WSRA-10s are reconfigured and sold by X Caliber in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. In 2012 Swiss Graduate Institute of International & Development Studies’ Small Arms Survey recorded the worldwide average of gun related murders as forty-two percent.

Caribbean intelligence reports noted T&T’s drug lord “Dole Chadee,” with Colombian drug cartel connections and access to Mexican underworld firearms, can sanction TT$6,000 or US$886 contract killings. Procuring illegal guns on the Caribbean Twin Island Republic, depending on make and model, ranges from TT$2,000 or US$295 and upward. Such firearms are imported with cocaine consignments. Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police (ACCP) data estimated more than one point six million illegal guns circulating between islands.