Mannatt holds firm: It represented the GOJ

Almost six months after Manatt, Phelps & Phillips first came under fire over the firm’s alleged role in an extradition dispute between Jamaica and the United States over accused drug lord Christopher Coke, newly disclosed e-mails are again throwing the firm’s role into question as to whether it sought to lobby U.S. officials on behalf of the Jamaican government to block Coke’s extradition.

http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2010/08/manatt-jamaica-emails.html

Taming the Crime Monster – Part two.

In the previous post I spoke about and will continue here on suggested strategies..

GPS Tracking and Counter Intelligence

 

Once a container on the wharf has been detected that contains contraband, this container (be it in a barrel, package whatever) should be fitted with a miniature GPS logger, voice recorder and covert miniature camera.

This will allow officers of the intelligence agency to not only track these weapons to their destination but more importantly will soon get the real mastermind behind these finds.

This will allow them to build a solid “bullet proof” case, complete with voice recording, video images, shipping details, items shipped, which would make it difficult for our skilled lawyers to get him/her off that case.

The only way I see for us to tame this monster is with the use of technology, we can no longer can we rely on eyewitness accounts to solve a transnational problem.

We have some top notch lawyers in Jamaica who can run rings around the local cops who lacks the investigative and evidence gathering skills and well as knowledge of the laws.

We do not have a system in place in Jamaica, which forbids the use of funds from the proceeds of crime to pay lawyers, and as such Mr. Biggs will splash down millions on millions to ensure he never spends a day in jail.

With so many lawyers being a part of government and with our close proxity to the USA, you would have thought we would have enacted such laws, where the accused has to prove the source of funds (SOF) for his criminal trial is not tainted.

Well think again, what happens when these politicians are kicked out of parliament, where do they go, well , straight back to their law offices where they can continue to rake in millions while keeping many of the purveyors of death on the streets.

Folks its no coincidence that we do not have “biting” laws in this country that works, its all a part of the design to ensure that those who seek to lead us can continue to live big, whether they are in or out of office.

 

Shock and Awe

 

Our Minister of National Security as well as our commissioner(s) of police I find spend too much time talking about what they plan or don’t plan to do, rather than just doing what they actually planned to do.

Appearing on National television to announce a crime fighting plan or strategy is plain NONSENSE and partly the reason why every last one of these strategies ALWAYS (barring none) as ended in abject failure.

How often have we heard  ” We will be flooding the communities with police and soldiers and will not leave until we root out these criminal elements”?

Months later you hear of the situation like what happened on Friday, August 13, 2010 in Tregedar Park and ask, ” Hey when did the security forces leave”? Did they ever flush out the criminals, get them arrested and charged and seized the guns?

How can Jamaicans be satisfied with the half hearted approach to crime fighting from our leaders, and not take steps to demand performance.

Shock and Awe in my mind comes about after the intelligence gathering has been completed and during this process the army, a special tactical team supported by the paramilitary unit at Harmon Barracks complete decisive and multiple simultaneous raids driven by the intelligence that has been gathered.

Those targeted in his shock and awe campaign should include but not limited to politicians who have been fingered in or associated with illegal arms trade, the Mr. Biggs of Kingston and St Andrew, Montego Bay, Manchester, St Catherine and Spanish town.

These persons must be declared enemy of the state and special court convened to get them early trail. The legislative arm of the country would have already enacted the necessary laws that would make it extremely difficult if not impossible for local top notch lawyers to represent these guys unless then can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that they are using is untainted money.

Immediately after the arrest the local law enforcement officials should move quickly to seize every single asset that have been previously identified as part of the intelligence gathering process, this will ensure that no lawyer can be given the authority while these guys are behind bars to move, transfer or dispose on any of their assets.

In tandem with the move, the intelligence until should seek to place a stop order at the ports of entry/exit to ensure that the others who may have escaped the dragnet cannot leave the country either via private airline or otherwise.

More to follow ….

Taming the Crime Monster – Continuation

This is a continuation of previous posts that I have done regarding the crime situation in Jamaica and steps that ought to be taken to address the growing problem.

Once the state of emergency had ended, we see that the criminal are back on the street and are more blood thirsty than they were, prior to the SOE.

Many have been left pondering the following questions?

a)     Do I give up some of civil liberties in exchange for being alive?

b)     Do not give up anything and hope I will be able to survive these murderers bloody onslaught.

Its quite instructive that in other countries extreme actions have been taken,  involving intelligence agencies, covert operations, wire tapping, email intercept, money tracking to try and prevent attacks on countries like the USA, UK and Israel.

The USA has taken the bold step to snoop in on its people, and monitor electronic transmission on a scale that has never been seen before, all to prevent and attack from within i.e. home grown terrorist as well as those from outside.

We in Jamaica have a crises on our hands and yet we sit by and expect to use the very same policies that we have tried for the last 30 yrs to solve a problem that is much wider and more sophisticated than it has ever been.

We then ask the politicians and the police what they are doing about the crime problem and then suggest that the police have the powers today to arrest the problem.

I do not know which planet these folks live on, but as far as I can tell they are just as clueless as the police on methodology to be used to make a major and permanent dent in crime.

My Suggestions

 

The current crime problem has to be fought on three fronts namely:

1)      Intelligence

2)     Shock and Awe

3)     Social & Political.

Intelligence

 

We seem to have an influx of guns flowing  into this country at such a rate, that for every gun seized in police operations; it’s quickly replaced by two or three more guns.

Arresting a truck driver, a side man or any such person sent to collect these weapons will never allow you to get to the source of these weapons.

There are therefore two ways that can be used to get to the source of these weapons, get rid of this source and you are on the way to making a dent into the problem.

Follow the money

 

It’s always about money. Money talks and BullS$$t walks is an old saying, but is a very true one.  Every weapons purchase involves a financial transaction and every electronic financial transaction can be traced quite easily.

Moving around with US$10,000 or more in cash will quickly trigger an investigation and those funds, can be seized by the authorities, if they were not declared

So what does the mastermind do to avoid such disclosure or investigation, well you got it right, do multiple transactions and keep those funds below US$10K to avoid triggering that investigation.

So what is required in Jamaica is an intelligence agency equipped to keep track of these transactions as well as the frequency with which these transactions take place. Where the funds go, to whom, the times and the amounts involved.

Cash transactions are much harder to detect and as such my proposal would be that the banks should be required to report frequent cash transaction by individuals who have no known business venture that would require them to be purchasing cash(forex) on a regular basis.

Credit card transactions should also be on the radar. Many persons today have credit cards with substantial purchasing power, not only that, these credit cards can also be used to move funds from Jamaica to USA, Canada or the UK via agencies such as Money Gram and Western Union.

If we follow the money it will quickly become evident that something is amiss between the source of funds and the funds remitted out of the country.

The above does not provide enough information to arrest and seek conviction of anyone, however it provide a path that can lead to that using the   Tax Evasion laws on the books as well as attempts to money laundering by seeking to circumvent existing laws.

Cont’d…. Next Post

Murders once again on the rise, why the silence?

From the human rights group, concerned citizens to the opposition party who were calling for the end to the state of emergency, the government of Jamaica has granted that wish, even though in a underhanded fashion.

What we have witnessed since the cessation of the State of Emergency is nothing short of outright war against the citizens of this country.
The poor, helpless and hapless have been murdered with such savagery that it makes one wonder who is really concerned about the interest of the poor in Jamaica.

During the SOE there was a significant drop in criminal activities including murder, now the gunmen seem like they are making up for time and loss numbers.
It appears that these animals and hell bent on making up for the numbers they lost during the time that the security forces seemed to have been in control.

After the barbarism in Trededar Park( Tragedy Park) we got what has become the norm now from the opposition and civil society i.e. outrage for a day or two then its back to normal until another set of vicious murders have been committed.

This situation only continues because those being murdered in large numbers are poor and defenseless black people. They are butchered without mercy regardless of age or gender and a country that has become numb to brutal murder simply “bawl” out and then move on like ” it never happened”.

 How much longer are we willing to sit by and allow our people to be killed?
 How much longer are we willing to allow Mr. Big to continue to import guns and ammunition into this country?
 How much longer are we willing to turn a blind eye to the shipment that contains gun and ammunition as (a) man haffi eat a food  (b) Cant afford to lose mi life over nuh gun shipment.
 How much longer are we willing to facilitate those “beating the system” to get  by with guns and ammunition in the barrels which contains foodstuff among other things.
 How much longer are we willing to allow our MP to pervert the course of law, by not allowing our policemen and women to go into certain communities and arrest ” d big man”.
 How much longer are we willing to remain silent while Mr. Jacket and Tie “rape” this country for his own personal benefit and in so doing rob this country of millions of dollars in taxes.
 How much longer are we willing to allow politicians to NOT do their jobs and then put them, back into office because ” Mi a PNP or JLP from mi born”.

Nothing in this country will change until we either demand change or seize the reins of power.