SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Dozens of soldiers and police swarmed a neighborhood on a recent night in Turks and Caicos Islands just days after the archipelago reported a record 40 murders this year.

They were on the hunt for criminals and illegal weapons, fueling a wave of violence in the Caribbean as authorities struggle to control a flow of firearms smuggled from the US.

Half an hour after the October 30 operation, a driver tried to elude authorities on the road while throwing a gun into the bushes.

“Rest assured, we remain committed to disrupting the flow of illicit weapons,” Police Inspector Jason James said hours later.

But the flow is too strong, with illegal firearms being blamed for a rise or record number of murders in a the growing number of islands in the Caribbean this year, including Trinidad and Tobago and the Bahamas.

No Caribbean nation manufactures or widely imports firearms or ammunition, but they account for half of the top 10 highest national homicide rates in the world, according to a statement by U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut.

In a letter sent to US lawmakers in late September, the New York attorney general and 13 other US colleagues called for new measures to stem the flow of arms, noting that 90 percent of the weapons used in the Caribbean were bought in the US and smuggled into the region.

“American-made weapons are entering the nations and communities of the Caribbean and fueling senseless violence, chaos and tragedy throughout the region,” New York Attorney General Letitia James wrote.

In mid-2023, the US government appointed its first Caribbean Firearms Prosecution Coordinator to help stop US gun smuggling in the region, with the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives already tracking firearms fire confiscated in the Caribbean.

Last year, 266 firearms seized in the Bahamas were submitted to the 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.

Most are pistols, followed by semi-automatic pistols.

Information gleaned from recovered guns can help U.S. authorities determine where and when they were purchased, triggering a national investigation into firearms trafficking.

But it’s a struggle to stem the flow of weapons, with smugglers dismantling them and hiding their parts in shipping containers.

“As much as you try to strengthen the infrastructure in official ports, it’s essentially like trying to plug a leak,” said Michael Jones, executive director of the Crime and Security Enforcement Agency at Caricom, a Caribbean trade bloc.

Intentional crimes

Homicides aren’t the only thing going on in parts of the Caribbean. There is an increase in privately manufactured firearms using 3D printers, and gunmen are using larger caliber weapons and becoming more reckless, with younger and younger people committing crimes, Jones said.

The killings now happen during the day, and not necessarily by a drive-by shooting, he said.

“You have some that are bold enough to walk up to an individual, put a gun to their head and walk away,” he said.

Jones said gangs are rampant in the region, with gunmen sometimes traveling to a particular island to commit the crime and then leaving.

Gangs also prey 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.

victims

On a recent afternoon in late October, a 42-year-old employee of the Trinidad and Tobago Forestry Division was fatally shot while in a car near his brother’s home.

He was one of six people killed in 48 hours, bringing the death toll in the twin-island nation of 1.4 million people to 518, compared with 468 killings last year. Sister island Tobago alone reported a record 20 murders – as of mid-August – and counting.

During a recent budget presentation, Prime Minister Keith Rowley called on MPs to draft a bill to ban assault weapons and high-powered rifles.

Experts say many crimes in the Caribbean are the result of gang violence, but civilians are increasingly caught in the crossfire.

“The proliferation of privately manufactured rifles and semi-automatic handguns, combined with the circulation of conversion devices, increases the likelihood that many more rounds will be fired during criminal shootings, which in turn can increase the risk of multiple injuries, including among bystanders ,” warned a June report by Caricom’s Impacs, Small Arms Survey and others.

One of those bystanders was a 4-year-old boy shot in the leg when gunfire erupted outside his preschool in Trinidad in late September. The bullet fractured one of his bones.

In the Bahamas, a man holding his 8-month-old child was shot and killed in early October as he got out of his car, where another 6-year-old child was sitting. Both children were unharmed.

It was the 90th killing of the year for the Bahamas, which has so far reported a 23 percent increase in killings over last year. However, overall crime has fallen, according to government statistics.

Jamaica, meanwhile, has one of the highest homicide rates in the world among countries with reliable statistics: 53.3 per 100,000 people. As of November 2, police statistics show 960 people have been killed, a drop of nearly 20 percent from last year and far from a record 1,683 homicides reported in 2009, but violence persists on the island of 2.8 million. people.

“It is of great concern to us,” Prime Minister Andrew Holness said at a news conference in November about the mass shootings.

In late October, five men were killed at a soccer game in a Kingston neighborhood that had previously struggled with gang violence. It was the island’s latest massacre.

On a visit to the neighborhood, Holness noted that the police had reduced the number of gangs from nearly 600 to 150.

While Jamaica passed anti-gang legislation to combat the violence, the Turks and Caicos Islands approved a law in early October that allows authorities to offer immunity or reduced sentences to those who provide key information about a crime.

Police in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and the Turks and Caicos Islands did not return repeated messages for comment.

“We’re asking the US to do more”

The majority of firearms smuggled into the Caribbean come from Florida, followed by Georgia and Texas. They are usually shipped directly to an island, although sometimes they pass through a port in Jamaica or the Bahamas first.

Firearms were found inside items ranging from cars to washing machines.

“It’s a big problem,” said James Sutton, police commissioner for St. Kitts and Nevis. “We’re asking the U.S. to do more.”

The twin-island nation has reported at least 27 homicides, the vast majority by guns. It is approaching a record 32 murders in 2016.

Haiti remains the worst affected Caribbean nation through smuggled weapons that feed the gangs that control 85% of the capital Port-au-Prince.

“Despite the strengthening of arms embargo measures, arms trafficking continues unabated,” said a UN Security Council report released in late October. “Gangs have increasingly acquired larger caliber weapons, resulting in more damage and a greater challenge for the police and the (UN-backed) mission.

The report says that trafficking from the US to Haiti is not a sophisticated process, noting that there are numerous networks often based on family or social connections, and that the “vast majority” of the 200 containers that go from South Florida to Haiti each week are not inspected .

“Despite being brought into the country in small quantities, this recurring ‘ant traffic’ is rapidly accumulating, leaving the country awash in arms,” ​​the report said.