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Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro reaf­firmed his ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to il­le­gal quar­ry­ing and min­er­al pro­cess­ing, say­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice has been pur­su­ing of­fend­ers for years and will con­tin­ue to dis­man­tle the crim­i­nal net­works be­hind the trade.

He said the is­sue did not sud­den­ly come un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion, as of­fi­cers have con­sis­tent­ly tar­get­ed op­er­a­tions that rob the coun­try of its re­sources, un­der­mine le­git­i­mate in­dus­try, and help fi­nance or­gan­ised crim­i­nal gangs.

Ac­cord­ing to the Com­mis­sion­er, forty-sev­en peo­ple were ar­rest­ed and charged be­tween 2020 and 2025 for of­fences re­lat­ed to il­le­gal quar­ry­ing and min­er­al pro­cess­ing with­out the re­quired li­cence from the Di­rec­tor of Min­er­als or the State Land Com­mis­sion­er. Nine­teen were charged for min­ing with­out a li­cence and twen­ty-eight for pro­cess­ing with­out a li­cence.