Trinidad and Tobago’s Paradise Lost

Hailey Eber (blackbook.com)
March 12, 2010

The island nation of Trinidad and Tobago is known as yet another lovely vacation spot in the Caribbean, but increasingly, it’s also a popular drug smuggling stopover. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the islands have become a major transfer point for drugs coming from South America en route to the U.S. and other sniffly countries.

With a location just seven miles off Venezuela, Trinidad is ideally located for drug smuggling. Traffickers send cocaine and arms from Venezuela to Trinidad via fast boat. In Trinidad, the goods are transferred to container ships, planes, or private yachts with hidden storage compartment, and then sent north. The drug trade has led to a rash of violence on the islands; last year, the murder rate in Trinidad’s capital, Port of Spain, rivaled those in Baghdad and Johannesburg.

The country’s prime minister, Patrick Manning, has made some efforts to tackle the drug problem, but they’ve been largely ineffectual. Security forces have yet to make a significant drug bust, and informal studies show that nearly 90% of the police force is corrupt. The government spends around $400 million each year on make-work projects to create jobs, but much of that money is ultimately funneled down to gang leaders. A sophisticated radar system was purchased a few years back, but most staffers don’t know how to use it. If Manning is really serious about taking on drug smugglers, he’s going to need help from the U.S. and Britain, whose navies patrol the region.

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