Commissioner of police, Gary Griffith and Buju Banton
By Melanius Alphonse
Caribbean News Now associate managing editor
[email protected]
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – Commissioner of police Gary Griffith announced that the issue of a warrant and the subsequent search of Mark Myrie commonly known as Buju Banton and his hotel room Saturday may have been the final act for the Organized Crime and Intelligence Unit (OCIU) of the police service. A news conference is scheduled for Wednesday for a major overhaul in the intelligence department.
“I realised there have been several irregularities and ball- dropping by intelligence agencies in the police service and this here could very well be the last straw. The OCIU is also supposed to be very instrumental in driving home the prosecutorial arm-so… likewise that we do not have any loopholes that someone can take advantage of loopholes that we may have caused and that has not also taken place. And I am going to put an end to this,” Griffith said.
Griffith is yet to determine the background to the intelligence leading up to the warrant and subsequent search of Banton’s hotel room, where nothing illegal was found. He, however, noted that “I have no intention for us to continue to drop the ball. The Trinidad and Tobago Police Service, (TTPS) needs to be intelligence-driven in all operations, and that needs to be the catalyst for successful operations.”
In 2009 Banton was arrested on drug trafficking offences in the United States. In 2011, he was convicted of those offences and served time in federal custody. He was released December 7, 2018.
