Click to view full size

U.S. Em­bassy per­son­nel from the Drug En­force­ment Ad­min­is­tra­tion Vet­ted Unit, sup­port­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice Spe­cial In­ves­tiga­tive Unit and the Transna­tion­al Or­gan­ised Crime Unit, ex­e­cut­ed three Pro­vi­sion­al Ar­rest War­rants on De­cem­ber 30, 2025, for Trinidad cit­i­zens Rafael Joseph, Michael Mc­Sween and Clevon Per­sad. All three face charges in the East­ern Dis­trict of New York for con­spir­a­cy to im­port co­caine in­to the Unit­ed States and firearms of­fences stem­ming from a 2024 DEA in­ves­ti­ga­tion sup­port­ed by the DEA New York Field Di­vi­sion.

The em­bassy iden­ti­fied Joseph as an ac­tive-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer serv­ing in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

U.S. Em­bassy Chargé d’Af­faires Dr Jenifer Nei­d­hart de Or­tiz said, “This was a great ex­am­ple of bi­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion be­tween our two coun­tries and a sig­nif­i­cant blow to not on­ly drug and firearms traf­fick­ing, but al­so against pub­lic cor­rup­tion with the ar­rest of the po­lice of­fi­cer. The out­stand­ing co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the U.S. Drug En­force­ment Ad­min­is­tra­tion’s Vet­ted Unit and SIU and TOCU shows the mul­ti­pli­er pow­er of agen­cies of both of our great coun­tries work­ing to­geth­er.”