As crime continues to be a plague to the nation, Minister of National Security Marvin Dames announced that the government has established a new multi-agency operation across law enforcement departments to deal with the challenges of guns, gangs, drugs and human trafficking.

Dames’ announcement came during his contribution to the debate in the House of Assembly where he discussed plans the Ministry of National Security has implemented to combat crime and in particular firearm trafficking.

“This multi-agency taskforce will focus much of their attention on those individuals and organizations responsible for the trafficking of firearms into our country and disrupting their method of operation wherever they may exist; this will be intelligence lead,” he said.

Dames added that given the composition of The Bahamas, 700 islands spread over 100,000 square miles of sea, the challenges faced with finding those weapons can be daunting.

He said it is known that firearms come into the country through courier services, pleasure crafts, airports and sea ports thus the government have increased security at those locations.

Dames also warned public officials who may be facilitating the trafficking of firearms.

To put into perspective what they are up against, Dames said for 2017, a total of 234 firearms and 7,821 rounds of ammunition have been seized.

He added that out of the 157 firearms that were traced by police thus far for the year, 124 or 79 percent of them originated out of the state of Florida and the remainder was traced to 20 other states across the United States.

“We will intensify our efforts by building our intelligence capacity and capability and aggressively pursuing those responsible on a 24/7 basis on every street corner of this country,” Dames said.

He also noted that they will continue to work with their partners in the U.S. and will improve the synergy between local law enforcement stakeholders to expose the trafficking methods and bring those organizations responsible to justice.

This announcement comes one day after the acting commissioner of police announced that the Royal Bahamas Police Force have implemented the Anti-Gang and Firearm Tracing and Investigation Unit at the Central Detective Unit and the Rapid Response Unit in the Fox Hill community.

Both initiatives were highlighted by Dames in his contribution in the House of Assembly and he added that he has requested that performance targets be included in the police commissioner’s annual policing plan for the purpose of measuring the yearly performance of the police against their previous record.