(WiredJA) In a stunning revelation, Trinidadian Prime Minister Keith Rowley has exposed an alleged plot by the state’s Strategic Services Agency (SSA) to overthrow his administration and replace it with a religious cult.
The shocking details emerged during a parliamentary session on July 3, 2024, where Dr. Rowley shared findings from an audit conducted by the acting director of the SSA, retired Brig Gen Anthony Phillips-Spencer.
The audit uncovered an alarming state of affairs within the SSA, which had been operating under the influence of a religious cult comprising highly-trained military personnel armed with advanced weaponry.
The group, which had gone undetected for years under the current People’s National Movement (PNM) administration, was allegedly on a treasonous mission to topple the government. According to Dr. Rowley, the cult members believed that trained military and paramilitary personnel with a religious calling were the most suitable to replace the country’s political leadership.
They exerted significant influence on the agency’s affairs, compromising national security. Shockingly, many of these individuals were never subjected to proper screening, polygraph tests, or integrity assessments.
The audit also revealed that the former SSA director had initiated the procurement of high-grade military bolt-action rifles equipped with çağdaş silencers and other accessories. The agency had been training specially selected, questionably hired personnel in the use of these weapons.
Furthermore, the SSA had established an unauthorized, highly militarized “Tactical Response Unit” for operational purposes without the required approval from the Cabinet, the National Security Council, or the Minister of National Security.
The unit was examined and abolished in March 2024, with its prior operations currently under review by the SSA and the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS). Prime Minister Rowley expressed grave concerns over the SSA’s actions, questioning the necessity for an intelligence-gathering organization to secretly maintain such a heavily armed operational unit.
He also highlighted discrepancies in the agency’s ammunition and weapon stocks, with the whereabouts of at least 70,000 rounds of ammunition unaccounted for and a significant increase in purchases from 8,000 rounds in 2017 to 100,000 by 2022.
The number of handguns in the SSA’s possession also rose from 24 in 2016 to 103 by 2022. The revelations have sent shockwaves through the twin island republic, raising serious questions about the integrity and loyalty of the state’s security apparatus.
As the investigation into the SSA’s activities continues, the nation awaits further details on the extent of the alleged coup plot and the measures being taken to ensure the stability and security of the government.
The following is the full text of Prime Minister Rowley’s speech.
Madam Speaker,
I am authorised by the Cabinet to issue the following statement:
Issue 1: Strategic Services Agency (SSA)
In the Annual Report of the Strategic Services Agency (SSA) for the year 2022 it was noted that the SSA was established in 1995, in accordance with Chapter 15:06 of the Laws of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, and became operational on July 01, 1996.
The primary purpose of the SSA is to guide the formulation and implementation of national policies on illicit trafficking of dangerous drugs and related criminal activities.
The main functions of the Agency are outlined by Section 6 (1) of the SSA Act, as expanded by the SSA (Amendment) Act, No.4 of 2016 (assented to by the President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago on May 31, 2016), which are to:
- act as an office for centralising information that could facilitate the detection and prevention of serious crime, for co-ordinating operations for the suppression of serious crime and for co-operating with the Services or the corresponding services of other countries.
- develop strategic intelligence and make recommendations to Government on the formation of policies in relation to serious crime.
- prepare crime prevention strategies
- disseminate information and intelligence to the Services;
- provide intelligence and analytical support for the appropriate operational and intelligence arms of the Services;
- assist in identifying sophisticated criminal activity and those who engage in it;
- help the law enforcement effort by identifying links between individuals and organisations involved in serious crime;
- provide strategic intelligence
- identify new trends in, and patterns of criminal activity;
- provide a nucleus of specialist intelligence personnel
- establish channels of communication with the Services and the corresponding Services of other countries.
The receipt by the National Security Council of certain information from the Special Branch of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service warranted an immediate intervention and the installation of new leadership at the SSA.
Since March 4, 2024, an extensive internal review and audit of the Strategic Services Agency (SSA) has been ongoing.
Between March 4 and April 21, 2024, Planning and Preliminary Review activities were completed by the Acting SSA Director, Brigadier General (Ret’d.) Anthony W J Phillips-Spencer, who was appointed on March 2, 2024.
These activities focused on the SSA’s:
- leadership and management;
- Its independent intelligence operations, inter-agency operations and international cooperation activities; and
- Its human resource management, and the financial and accounting management policies and practices.
Notwithstanding the ongoing audit, the core business of the SSA remained uninterrupted.
After the initial public disclosure of these developments the primary objective is now to retool the agency and regain the public trust and the confidence of all stakeholders, both national and international.
The audit continues to be guided by the strategic pillars of Professional Stewardship, Institutional Integrity and Organizational Governance.
The Audit has so far found that what was happening at the SSA rendered the entity:
- increasingly incapable of securing public trust.
- It was discovered that the SSA had adopted an unapproved organizational design/structure and staffing, without the required authority of a decision, either by the Cabinet, the National Security Council or the Minister of National Security. For example, the SSA established and operated, a highly trained and militarised so-called “Tactical Response Unit” for operational purposes. As part of the audit review this unit was examined and abolished in March 2024. Its operations prior to March 2024 is under review by SSA and the TTPS.
Why would an intelligence-gathering organization, with a mandate to collect and share information with operational units in other law enforcement and defence agencies, find it necessary, to secretly have an operational unit of that nature and magnitude?
For what purpose was such a Unit established, in an intelligence-gathering agency? What was their role? What did they actually do? These questions are still to be fully understood and answered and form the subject of police investigation. In the meantime The National Security Council views this development with great concern.
Madam Speaker, in March 2024, twenty-eight (28) employees were terminated; either for violations of the SSA Act and Regulations, or for anomalous recruitment or faulty promotion processes and practices.
- The audit also found disturbing practices of nepotism and opportunism. For example, several family members and associates of particular persons; and of a particular church, were found to have been surreptitiously employed in this agency. Such persons belonged to a cult which was arming itself while preaching a doctrine for trained military and paramilitary personnel with a religious calling to be the most suitable to replace the country’s political leadership. They were exerting high levels of influence on the affairs of the agency to the detriment of National Security. Many of these persons were never polygraphed or otherwise screened or integrity-tested, this being an absolute essential given the nature and mandate of the agency. The audit currently includes a preliminary review of the Polygraph Policy, published in April 2022.
- Instances of dishonesty and deep deception have also been discovered. For example, the composition of a Strategic Services Agency’s delegation, was authorised to travel abroad on official business, after which, a non-employee of the agency was inexplicably inserted into the delegation, in the place of an employee who was approved for the delegation.
- The audit found that there existed a clear need for improved management of the Controlled Equipment and Supplies Inventory (CESIM), to accommodate and treat with the increased stock of firearms and ammunition, now possessed by the SSA, as well as for security-related ICT and other technical equipment and supplies.
Madam Speaker, in 2017, the Agency purchased eight thousand (8,000) rounds of 9-millimetre (mm) ammunition, but by 2022, the amount purchased during that year was one hundred thousand (100,000) rounds!
While arming itself the Agency did not disaggregate ammunition held for operational use, from ammunition stored for the purpose of training, in accordance with international best practices. Similarly, whereas in 2016, the SSA held a mere twenty-four (24) firearms, consisting of pistols or revolvers, since 2021, the number of firearms held by the SSA, increased to one hundred and three (103), of different types and calibre, including military grade.
Why would an intelligence-gathering agency need one hundred and three (103) firearms of different types, and calibre; and why would the agency in 2022, need one hundred thousand (100,000) rounds of ammunition?
But that is not all Madam Speaker. Shockingly, the audit discovered that the former Director of the SSA, initiated the procurement of high-grade military bolt-action rifles, complete with the most çağdaş silencers and other accessories; and the SSA was engaged in training specially selected questionably hired personnel in the skill of the use of such weapons. This Madam Speaker, BEFORE, the amendment to the Act in November of 2023.
It was only on the 1st of November 2023, upon the request from the then Director, SSA, for the agency to bear arms in certain restricted circumstances and persuasive reasons offered, that Cabinet approved and Parliament authorised SSA staffers, to keep and carry concealable pistols, whether on duty or not. This matter, Madam Speaker, is gaining the attention of the Police as we speak!
One aspect of the audit, has so far revealed that the use/whereabouts of seventy thousand (70,000) rounds of ammunition, purchased by the SSA, remains unrecorded and unaccounted for. This matter too, remains the subject of continuing audit and police investigation, while corrective action, in respect, of the management of arms and ammunition inventory has, been taken.
The corrective actions include a review of the Firearms and Ammunition Policy published in April 2022 as well as the procurement and use of vehicles, firearms and ammunition inventory checks, at all SSA locations.
Prior to that yasal November 2023 authorisation, the National Security Council of the Government was not aware that the SSA possessed those levels of arms and ammunition or that the SSA was actively engaged in extensive weapons training, procuring and consuming large volumes of ammunition. There was never a budget in the SSA to purchase military grade weapons nor was the NSC ever informed of any such activities or that such capabilities were being developed within the SSA. This did not prevent the SSA from making part payment for military grade weapons with suppression capabilities.
Madam Speaker, as indicated earlier, several police investigations are ongoing. Among the firearms and ammunition coming into the possession of the Strategic Services Agency in the period under review, several of them were issued from the Trinidad and Tobago Police Armoury to the Special Operations Response Team (SORT). The necessary record keeping and statements of issue are quite muddled or in some instances even non-existent.
These firearms were chronicled in the Special Operations Response Team’s (SORT) Firearm register.
This Special Operations Response Team (SORT) has since been disbanded. It was disbanded because it became entangled in allegations of serious human rights abuses and exposed the Government of Trinidad and Tobago to United States sanctions flowing from the assumed violation of the United States, Leahy Act. This Madam Speaker involved the killings where it was said by a Commissioner of Police, and subordinates that persons in police custody actually died when they “fell off a chair”. Only recently this sick joke was repeated by a former Commissioner of Police who used the said explanation to assure the public that the unfortunates who fell off the chair “could never rape anybody again.”
The upshot, Madam Speaker, is that arms and ammunition belonging to the TTPS were transferred to the SSA without authority, ostensibly for official use, by the Guard Unit of the SSA, located at Camp Cumuto, a Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force facility, where the Strategic Services Agency also have a presence.
That issuance, was in clear breach of the Firearms Act of Trinidad and Tobago, resulting in police personnel being charged for certain criminal offenses in relation to it.
In addition, a former employee of the SSA, who was party to that transaction was also charged in relation to it.
Police investigations have since revealed that the “Guard Unit” at the SSA, never received the firearms and ammunition, as was declared to be the case, in the relevant documents.
An audit conducted in respect of firearms and ammunition, issued to the SSA, did not reveal the presence of those firearms and ammunition.
However, Madam Speaker, on the 5th of March, 2024, a self-described “spy”, who was also appointed a Special Reserve Police Officer, by the then Commissioner of Police, appeared at the Cumuto Barracks and voluntarily handed over a cache of firearms and ammunition, to a member of the National Operations Task Force, located at the same camp. Subsequent investigations confirmed that these weapons came from the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service by way of transfer to the SSA before it was authorised to have any such weapons.
These firearms were submitted to the relevant national security agency for analysis; and were confirmed to be automatic weapons. Arising out of these related matters, the Police personnel and former SSA employees were all arrested and charged for several criminal offenses. It is still to be determined where these weapons were stashed, whether they were ever fired and if so, in what operations, for what purpose and under whose authority and direct control.
Madam Speaker, the matters relating to the two bolt-action sniper rifles, of which I spoke earlier, is indeed under further police investigation.
Several members of the SSA and former members are the subject of continued investigations by the TTPS, in respect of certain motor vehicles, currently and previously assigned to the SSA.
Madam Speaker without saying much more, suffice it to say that there is much more investigative work to be done as the requisite policing agencies continue to follow the evidence. Efforts are well underway to rebuild the SSA to ensure that its core mandate is discharged and that it operates within the law in the hands of people who respect their role and appreciate their training thereby making the rejuvenated SSA, stronger, more professional and even more fit for purpose.