Serious Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) Strengthens Pursuit of High-Level Criminals for Firearms and Drug Offenses

The Serious Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) is intensifying efforts to bring high-level criminals to justice for firearms and drugrelated crimes, Acting Commissioner of Police Erwin Boyce declared on Monday.

With 71 illegal guns having been taken out of the hands of criminals in 2024, the acting commissioner said the six-month-old SOCU is on a mission to get the masterminds of serious crimes.

“That is perhaps where the Serious Organised Crime Unit has a mandate,” he told reporters. “And I can assure that there is lots of it [investigation] going on in terms of your own perception of big fish and mastermind, in terms of getting matters in an abled position to go before the court.”

Boyce disclosed that the unit, which was unveiled in July last year, during a press conference by Prime Minister Mia Mottley, to focus “entirely on organised crime and gangs”, is well-constituted in terms of its quality and skillset.

Though he couldn’t provide figures on its achievements so far, he said the unit was able to make a number of arrests last year regarding drugs.

“There are strategies that we employ from time to time,” he said. “There [is] a suite of strategies that we employ from time to time to infiltrate, to dismantle, to disrupt. And sometimes, yes, the focus is on the man in the street because the man in the street presents the greatest fear to the average person moving from point to point. But equally so, behind the scenes are some serious investigations, focused investigations in order to make a determination to the level of conspiracy that is involved in groups or influencers.”

Noting that as Barbados does not manufacture guns — such weapons are imported — Acting Police Commissioner Boyce stressed the need for all security agencies to collaborate in stemming the flow.

But he acknowledged that the Customs and Excise Department and the Barbados Port Authority cooperate with the police in relation to illicit guns.

He said: “Whatever progress we make is predicated on the information that we receive and the intelligence that we have, to create the response strategies. We still remain a very open society and we are still very import-charged.

So, we need to co-opt the relationship with all partners, and we need to move that relationship to a level where they see what we see; they see what members of society see in terms of protecting and making sure that firearms are not the everyday thing in Barbados.”

He said the police service is making inroads in the business of illegal firearms but that better can be done once people provide the relevant information.

But Boyce pointed out that the police service has always feared that firearms are reaching the hands of very young people, which is accompanied by a level of recklessness.

He said while the majority of these weapons are 9mm handguns, police investigators are discovering some highpowered ones and some which are not familiar to officers.

“We have conceptualised a number of responses, and a number of teams and joint patrols and those sorts of things will be on the road to make sure that people are safe in public spaces and people are safe in private jurisdictions too,” Boyce said.