Last week another American was arrested in the Turks and Caicos for bringing bullets into the islands — and he faces stiff prison time, a reminder there’s a reason Caribbean governments are cracking down so hard on weapons-related crimes these days.
In recent years, the Turks and Caicos have seen a big jump in gun-related violence, thanks largely to weapons being smuggled into the British Caribbean island territory. So in 2022, the officials ramped up their gun laws.
Last Tuesday, Tyler Wenrich of Virginia became the third U.S. tourist this year arrested for bringing gun ammunition there in his luggage.
Bryan Hagerich of Pennsylvania was arrested for the same crime in February; Ryan Watson of Oklahoma was similarly busted earler this month.
Like Hagerich and Watson, Wenrich admits what he calls his "bone-headed" mistake of not emptying his suitcase of the bullets, used for recreational firearms activities back in the U.S., before he boarded the cruise ship that stopped in Turks and Caicos last week. The U.S. Transportation Security Administration also admits it didn't detect the ammo when Wenrich embarked.
But all three men now face a minimum of 12 years in prison under Turks and Caicos' tougher new laws.
READ MORE: The U.S. says it's 'ramping up' its campaign against arms trafficking to Haiti and the Caribbean
Turks and Caicos, however, are hardly the only Caribbean government lashing out at the tsunami of weapons flooding their islands. Anthony Salisbury, the special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations in Miami, says the entire region is overwhelmed by gun trafficking today.
“Almost overnight, we've seen a massive uptick in not only the volume heading down to the Caribbean, particularly to Haiti, but in the caliber — high-caliber rifles," Salisbury said at a briefing with reporters in Miami last Friday.
"It was [not long ago] unheard of to hear of long arms going to Turks and Caicos Islands.”
Salisbury said there’s little doubt where most of those guns are trafficked from.
“The choke point for weapons going into the Caribbean," he said, "is South Florida.”
Chris Robbins, special agent in charge in Miami for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, who also took part in the briefing, pointed out most of those high-power weapons are purchased in South Florida and other U.S. regions legally. Straw buyers then falsify shipment information to send the guns to Caribbean locales, often to drug traffickers or gangs operating there.
Haiti is under virtual gang control today in large part because of the wave of military-style rifles and other weapons that have been smuggled there via export points like Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale.
