SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (news agencies) — Dozens of soldiers and police fanned out across a neighborhood on a recent night in the Turks & Caicos Islands just days after the archipelago reported a record 40 killings this year.
They were on the hunt for criminals and illegal weapons fueling a surge of violence across the Caribbean as authorities struggle to control a stream of firearms smuggled in from the U.S.
Half an hour into the Oct. 30 operation, one driver tried to run authorities off the road as he tossed a handgun into the bushes.
“Rest assured, we remain committed to disrupting the flow of illicit guns,” Police Superintendent Jason James said hours later.
But the flow is too strong, with illegal firearms blamed for an increase or a record number of killings in a growing number of Caribbean islands this year, including Trinidad and Tobago and the Bahamas.
No Caribbean nation manufactures firearms or ammunition or imports them on a large scale, but they account for half of the world’s top 10 highest national murder rates, according to a statement from U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut.
In a letter sent to U.S. legislators in late September, New York’s attorney general and 13 other colleagues across the U.S. demanded new measures to stop the flow of guns, noting that 90% of weapons used in the Caribbean were bought in the U.S. and smuggled into the region.
“American-made guns are flowing into Caribbean nations and communities and fueling violence, chaos, and senseless tragedies throughout the region,” wrote New York Attorney General Letitia James.
In mid-2023, the U.S. government appointed its first coordinator for Caribbean firearms prosecutions to help curb weapon smuggling from the U.S. to the region, with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives already tracing firearms seized in the Caribbean.
Last year, 266 firearms seized in the Bahamas were submitted to ATF, along with 234 firearms from Jamaica, 162 from the Dominican Republic and 143 from Trinidad and Tobago, according to the agency’s most recent data.
The majority are handguns, followed by semiautomatic pistols.
The information gleaned from recovered weapons can help authorities in the U.S. determine where and when they were bought, triggering a domestic firearms trafficking investigation.
But it’s a struggle to stop the flow of weapons, with smugglers disassembling them and hiding their parts in sea-bound containers.
“As much as you try to harden the infrastructure at the official ports, it is essentially like trying to plug a sift,” said Michael Jones, executive director of the Implementation Agency for Crime and Security at Caricom, a Caribbean trade bloc.
Homicides are not the only thing rising across parts of the Caribbean. There’s an increase in privately made firearms using 3D printers, and gunmen are using higher caliber weapons and becoming more brazen, with younger and younger people committing crimes, Jones said.
Killings are now occurring during the day, and not necessarily via a drive-by shooting, he said.
“You have some who are so bold as to walk up to an individual, put the gun to their head, and walk away,” he said.
Jones said gangs are franchising across the region, with gunmen sometimes traveling to a certain island to commit the crime and then leaving.
Gangs also are preying on young people because they lack opportunities, Jones said.
“Even now, there are some countries that will tell you they don’t have a gang problem,” he said.
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