Looking inside the criminal gang

Jul 18, 2015 Editorial

The recent arrest of a group of men at Craig and procuring what appears to be information that can solve at least one murder and an armed robbery has provided an insight into the world of the criminal network. For one, there is no hint of racism in the criminal underworld; the criminals have no time for that.
We see that they need not operate like wolves in a pack; they can live miles apart, doing different things by day and still have a closely-knit network. This may be why the police are finding it so difficult to solve some crimes. They often end up looking in the wrong direction. At the same time people who do have some information keep their mouths shut, not realizing that they are all potential victims.
Take the case of the Regent Multiplex owner, Ganesh Ramlall. He was so easy going that it was almost unbelievable that someone would want to kill him for no other reason than he had some money. It turned out that the very people he hobnobbed with planned his robbery and murder. We now learn that for two weeks two people, one of whom the man often ‘blessed up’, planned and plotted.
That these two, both of them hire car drivers, would know the hard core criminals is also surprising given that they live in different worlds. It now goes to show that people must now be selective in which taxi they travel and who the driver is. They must be less talkative.
In the United States a taxi comes with bullet proof glass separating the driver from the customer who is not allowed to ride in the front seat. There is limited conversation and most times none except to give directions.
The Guyanese culture does not lend easily to these things but now it is becoming clear that it should. A casual conversation to a taxi driver about repairing a house could lead to a visit from armed criminals and could even cost you your life.
It is also surprising that the same people, who killed Ramlall on West Demerara, attacked and severely beat a Land Court judge and her husband in their home. And the same taxi drivers were involved. The nation would be very interested in the phone records between the taxi drivers and the bandits.
There is another aspect to all this. Information gleaned from people who associated with the gang members led to the capture of what must be the largest criminal gang around. We now hear that this gang behaved like the amoeba, splitting itself into smaller parts for certain crimes and rarely moving about as a large unit, perhaps because of space problems in the getaway cars.
Such information must have come at a cost and exposes the fact that the police may have reintroduced the system of paid informers. This is the case all over the world. The police would either place their own in undercover roles or would get people from within to provide credible and timely information.
Some of the people captured in the Craig raid claimed that they had gone to the house for a party. If that is the case did the police stage and sponsor the party? If that is the case kudos to the police planners because whatever money the force expended yielded benefits far outweighing what it would have cost in salaries and in financial loss to the nation every time the gang struck.
There is still one worrying thing. The courts are likely to release some of the gang members in application by their lawyers. It is common knowledge that many of those released simply commit other crimes while they are out on bail.
One can only hope that the police, under this new administration, procure learned people who can put together the evidence in a way to secure watertight prosecution. The other thing that needs to be looked at, is the readiness to try some of these people summarily and the ease with which the state is prepared to strike bargains.
The authorities must beware of those who will be granted immunity to testify against the others.

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