My Sick Feeling Some Gun Finds May Be Decoys For Much Larger Operations

While the rev­e­la­tions of large weapons and ammu­ni­tion finds at var­i­ous entry points by the secu­ri­ty forces are cause for cel­e­bra­tion they also leave many ques­tions unanswered.

Even as I say kudos to the secu­ri­ty forces, I can­not shake the uneasy feel­ing I have and the knot in my throat from think­ing that the caches found may rep­re­sent what the smug­glers want to give to author­i­ties as they slip larg­er quan­ti­ties of weapons right past their noses.

In addi­tion to that, I must again raise the ques­tion why?
Why are the secu­ri­ty forces unable to set up sting oper­a­tions to nab who­ev­er comes to claim the illic­it consignments?
Why can’t the police and mil­i­tary intel­li­gence coor­di­nate with their American coun­ter­parts to stop the flow of American guns and ammu­ni­tion into the Island?

It is a well-doc­u­ment­ed fact that drug car­tels have used this time-test­ed strat­e­gy to divert atten­tion away while they pass huge amounts of con­tra­band undetected.
If Jamaican author­i­ties are to have real suc­cess in this fight it has to think two steps ahead of the crim­i­nal net­works oper­at­ing bi-costal­ly in fur­ther­ance of crime on the Island.

The secu­ri­ty forces can­not allow itself to be lured down rab­bit holes chas­ing after lures intend­ed to dis­tract from the real prize.
We hear the very ger­mane ques­tion all the time, where do these poor urban kids get mon­ey to pur­chase these sophis­ti­cat­ed weapons and seem­ing­ly end­less sup­plies of ammunition?
The answers are star­ing us all in the face. There are Jamaicans liv­ing in the United States who are active­ly send­ing these weapons and ammu­ni­tion back into Jamaica in many cas­es using inge­nious meth­ods to avoid detection.

The method­olo­gies being employed by crim­i­nals in fur­ther­ance of their objec­tives are increas­ing­ly ingenious.
With the lim­it­ed train­ing, exper­tise, resources, and cor­rup­tion with­in the secu­ri­ty forces, Jamaica is at a dis­tinct disadvantage.
I can­not shake the feel­ing we are chas­ing the pen­nies while miss­ing the dollars.

I under­stand how size­able finds can be a cause of eupho­ria for the men and women in the field. In fact, when I served I was extreme­ly ecsta­t­ic when I removed a sin­gle gun from the streets.
Nevertheless, those finds must rep­re­sent the begin­ning of inves­ti­ga­tions, not the end.
In the lat­est find police revealed that they arrest­ed one per­son. The inves­ti­ga­tion must now begin in earnest. It should not be about run­ning To the near­est micro­phone but should be cen­tered now on secur­ing a war­rant for this sus­pec­t’s cell­phone with a view to see­ing who he has been talk­ing to over­seas in recent times and what are the con­tents of those conversations.

The idea that some­one can ship a con­tain­er out of the United States or any oth­er coun­try for that mat­ter with­out expos­ing him or her­self sub­stan­tial­ly is a con­cept which eludes me.
I fun­da­men­tal­ly believe Jamaican author­i­ties are not doing near­ly enough to fol­low up on these ship­ments with law enforce­ment over­seas with a view to iden­ti­fy­ing those who send guns ammu­ni­tion and oth­er con­tra­band into the country.

These cas­es are won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ties for the Jamaican police to demon­strate that they are capa­ble of inves­ti­gat­ing crimes.
Bringing those respon­si­ble to jus­tice wher­ev­er they are is the great­est deter­rent to those involved in these illic­it practices.
Failing which, the police will be left cel­e­brat­ing these finds, the lion’s share of the illic­it activ­i­ties will con­tin­ue and the nation will con­tin­ue to be inun­dat­ed with ille­gal guns.