Source: Loop Caribbean
The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has published a report stating that the majority of recovered firearms used in crimes in the Caribbean were traced to the US and trafficked through various means.
The report said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) traced the origin of firearms recovered in Caribbean countries at the request of Caribbean law enforcement agencies or ATF officials in the Caribbean to determine the origin.
The US GAO report said the ATF processed 7,399 traces of firearms recovered in crimes in the Caribbean from 2018 through 2022.
“GAO analysis of these data showed that 73 per cent of these firearms, most of which were handguns, were sourced from the U.S. While Caribbean countries do not manufacture firearms, U.S. and foreign officials said that criminals in Caribbean countries can traffic firearms by air and sea using various concealment techniques and can obtain firearms through illegal markets,” the reports said.
To help disrupt and combat firearms trafficking, the Departments of State, Justice, Homeland Security (DHS), and Commerce have various capacity-building, investigative, and border security efforts in place, the report read.
“For instance, the State, working through the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI)—a U.S. security partnership with 13 Caribbean countries—helps fund various training and capacity building programs, such as the Crime Gun Intelligence Unit. This unit collects and analyses intelligence on guns and promotes intelligence sharing with regional international law enforcement partners,” the report noted.
According to the report, the DHS’s Customs and Border Protection interdicts illicit firearms at U.S. ports of entry en route to the Caribbean. “From fiscal years 2018 through 2023, it conducted hundreds of domestic interdictions, seizing 535 firearms and 3,167 firearm components at U.S. ports destined for Caribbean countries,” the report said.
The US GAO report said it conducted the study because some Caribbean nations, such as Haiti, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, have high rates of violence, including homicide. In 2021, Caribbean countries accounted for six of the world’s ten highest national murder rates, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
The report said the United Nations and other organisations monitoring firearms trafficking have reported that a high percentage of the firearms used in these crimes have been trafficked from the US.
GAO was asked to report on US efforts to counter firearms trafficking to Caribbean nations.
The report examined what data and reporting show about the trafficking and use of firearms in Caribbean countries, US agencies’ efforts to disrupt firearms trafficking in these countries, and agency efforts to track the results of key efforts to combat firearms trafficking from the US to the Caribbean.