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Prison breach­es and spi­ralling vi­o­lence in San­gre Grande point to a deep­er na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty cri­sis, ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge, who says the threat is be­ing fu­elled by the in­fil­tra­tion of Venezue­lan gang Tren de Aragua in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s un­der­world.

Speak­ing at a bud­get con­sul­ta­tion in Freeport on Wednes­day night, Sturge said three of six high-risk in­mates re­cent­ly ex­tract­ed from the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison were lead­ers of gangs op­er­at­ing in the north-east, in­clud­ing To­co and his home con­stituen­cy of San­gre Grande. He said the re­lo­ca­tion was nec­es­sary be­cause prison au­thor­i­ties could no longer re­strain them.

“In or­der to curb that we had to cut off the head of the snake,” Sturge said. Yet even af­ter their re­moval, he added, one of the in­mates is­sued threats to law en­force­ment via voice note.