Deputy Police Commissioner Wayne Charlery addressed the commencement of a human trafficking operation here that Saint Lucia’s multiple criminal organizations profit from trafficking weapons, drugs, and people.
“We must take a good, long look at human trafficking as exploited by the gangs to make the money to acquire the weaponry to kill our people,” he said.
Charlery noted that local violence had been vicious for 20 years, with killings rising year.
He said that Vieux Fort’s lethal gun violence rise showed how combustible and terrible the situation may become.
Charlery said criminal organizations have prospered on weapons, drugs, and people trafficking.
“So we’re trying to do certain things with the narcotics and the weaponry — they’re not people,” he said.
“Gangs trade people. They profit from this. “We need to establish and execute a regime that can oppose what the gangs are doing on all fronts,” the Deputy Police Commissioner said.
The Serious Crimes Unit found four human trafficking victims on December 30, 2022, while serving search warrants.
Charlery said the four migrants were compelled to perform in an adult entertainment venue.
Police apprehended and charged the business owner on January 16, 2023.
He was granted $100,000 bail with various restrictions and postponed to April 21, 2023.
As a police force, we are in the early phases of human trafficking investigations. “To date, this case would be one of the clearest situations we have seen where you have victims, you have a perpetrator, you have gone to court and it is plainly human trafficking,” Deputy Commissioner Wayne Charlery told his audience.
