SOMEBODY LETTING THE COCAINE PASS…

VENEZUELA’S notorious narco-trafficking Cartel of the Sun ships around 450 tons of cocaine each year – some of which is smuggled through Trinidad and Tobago.

The American authorities have tightened their crackdown in a direct effort to counter the drug scourge in their land.

The concentrated effort is also a frontal attack on Nicolas Maduro, who is considered by the United States as the illegitimate leader of Venezuela.

Former Venezuelan spy chief Hugo Carvajal – identified as a drug kingpin – was recently extradited from Spain and is awaiting trial in the US, the result of years of persistent work by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

The US Department of Justice says Maduro and cohorts have partnered with Colombia’s guerrilla group FARC to “flood” America with cocaine.

After years of relative inactivity, the US has gotten tough on drug trafficking – and its evil sisters money laundering and the gun trade – in the Caribbean waters.

Vice President Kamala Harris announced technical and financial support at a meeting with Caricom leaders in The Bahamas in June.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged renewed cooperation during the July Caricom anniversary conference in Port of Spain and named the first-ever Caribbean Firearms Prosecutor.

Ambassador Candace Bond, who took up the post at the start of the year, is providing decisive leadership.

The offensive is also a response to a US $10 billion lawsuit by Mexico against American gun makers and wholesalers (a legal action which T&T has joined), and China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) influence in the Caribbean.

The aggressive role of the Americans was the reason for the $234 million, 168 kilograms, cocaine bust in Chaguaramas in May.

The Americans, whose policy is to permit local authorities to take credit, sat back as police chief Erla Harewood-Christopher hailed “a multi-agency, intelligence-led operation.”

But the crackdown was the handiwork of the DEA, the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, and other high-powered agencies.

Ms. Bond later asserted that the US is T&T’s “best and most reliable partner in the world” and “tangible evidence” that the embassy is delivering to the people of both countries.

US agencies were responsible for busting a meth lab off San Fernando last month and assisted in cracking the so-called “ghost guns” factory in Caparo Valley.

T&T’s borders remain porous despite sophisticated multi-million-dollar resources being bought or donated over the years.

Damen vessels are rotting at Chag, Cape Class patrol boats are under-used, Coast Guard surveillance equipment are barely utilised, trained personnel are not properly deployed, and there is negligible police vigilance.

Trinidad’s vast eastern seaboard remains open territory for drug operators, so there was no police watch or intelligence as cocaine – estimated to be worth $100 million – washed up on the beach.

Mayaro’s representative Rushton Paray says the community’s police station has three vehicles to cover 25 miles of coastline and service thousands of residents.

The US State Department and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime are keeping up the drumbeat: That T&T remains a vital drug transshipment hub.

All of this is taking place in a land in which the privileged rich is getting richer and business monopolies are being set up without a word from the authorities.

Against that backdrop, we recall the ever-appropriate lyrics of calypso poet David Rudder in “Madman’s Rant:”

“Somebody clean out the weed well fast,

“But somebody letting the cocaine pass!”