George: $42M drug bust in Tobago ‘a drop in the bucket’

Chairman of the Tobago Business Chamber, Martin George, says the $42 million drug bust in Tobago is just a drop in the bucket, as it relates to crime detection on the island.

Police believe the narcotics and firearms, which were found during a police operation at Pigeon Point Beach on Monday night, were en route to another Caribbean island.

Two suspects were arrested during the bust and are expected to be charged soon.

Martin George told Guardian Media that drugs are the driving force behind violent crimes in Tobago.

He believes there is a lot more work to be done by the police.

“I am hoping that this may not be an isolated incident or isolated quantity,” George said.  “This could actually be the tip of the iceberg, when you look at the unprecedented scale of the murders which have occurred in Tobago this year alone.”

“I have said repeatedly that one of the major things that must be fuelling this [rise in murders] is an inflow of illegal drugs and illegal guns,” he pointed out.

Tobago has seen one of its bloodiest periods, with 25 murders recorded for the year, thus far.

FILE – A composite image showing Sarah Smith (left), and her two children (right)—three-year-old son Genuine and 18-month-old Phoenix—whose bodies were found in a decommissioned WASA water tank in Parlatuvier, Tobago, on September 11, 2024.

The Tobago Business Chamber chairman is questioning why the police have not yet classified the deaths of Sarah Smith and her two children.  Back in September, their bodies were found in a decommissioned WASA water tank in Parlatuvier.

George says the family deserves answers.

“They said they were waiting on the autopsy report.  The autopsy report came back,” he told Guardian Media. “Since then, there has been silence from the TTPS.”

“At the end of the day, as grisly and as garish as the statistics may be,” he said, “if it is that those three are three additional murders, then the police must say so.”

“You can’t leave the families hanging in abeyance,” he asserted.

Martin George was a guest on today’s edition of CNC3’s The Morning Brew show.

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