The briefing that Trinidad and Tobago's security services provided to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar in early 2025 contained information so alarming that it triggered an immediate emergency response. A criminal network — one that intelligence indicated had significant reach inside the country's prison system — had allegedly developed concrete plans to assassinate a series of senior government officials and attack key public institutions.
The targets, according to official accounts, included the Prime Minister herself, the Attorney General, and the Commissioner of Police. The plot was not merely a threat from outside the system — it was a demonstration of how deeply organised crime had penetrated the very institutions meant to contain it.
The Prison System Problem
Trinidad and Tobago's prisons have long been known to be overcrowded, understaffed, and inadequately resourced. What the 2025 intelligence suggested, however, went beyond the chronic problems of prison management: the jails had become operational headquarters for criminal networks, with gang leaders directing street-level violence from their cells using smuggled mobile phones and corrupted prison staff as intermediaries.
This is not a uniquely Trinidadian problem — similar dynamics have been documented in Jamaica, Brazil, El Salvador, and Mexico — but the revelation that T&T had reached this point shocked a public that had hoped the country's crime problems, while serious, remained qualitatively different from those of its larger neighbours.
A Second State of Emergency
The plot discovery triggered a second, more expansive State of Emergency that extended the initial December 2024 declaration. The government moved to restructure prison operations, implement phone-jamming technology, and transfer senior gang members to maximum-security facilities. The Attorney General confirmed in parliamentary debate that the state of emergency would remain in place until at least October 2025, given the ongoing security threat.
