Sur­veil­lance on Venezue­lans le­gal, il­le­gal and crim­i­nal. The TT Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is mon­i­tor­ing the con­nec­tions be­tween Venezue­lan crim­i­nals who have been iden­ti­fied in T&T and the lo­cal gangs. And TTPS and oth­er se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies are al­so mon­i­tor­ing the move­ments of Venezue­lans en­ter­ing Trinidad & Tobago legal­ly as well as il­le­gal­ly.

Act­ing Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon con­firmed this in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day when he was grilled by Op­po­si­tion MPs Rod­ney Charles, Roodal Mooni­lal and Vidia Guyadeen-Gopeesingh on re­ports about il­le­gal Venezue­lans in Trinidad & Tobago and crim­i­nal links with lo­cal gangs.

“A num­ber of mon­i­tor­ing and in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing ex­er­cis­es are tak­ing place right now from the TTPS,” Dil­lon said, de­tail­ing ac­tiv­i­ties. Dil­lon, act­ing for an ab­sent Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, was grilled about the sit­u­a­tion fol­low­ing re­ports that 25 Venezue­lan na­tion­als were held for il­le­gal­ly en­ter­ing T&T and claims that lo­cal gangs are be­ing in­fil­trat­ed by cer­tain no­to­ri­ous Venezue­lan drug car­tels.(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]