Police to target gang leaders in 2012

(Jamaica Gleaner) The police will be targeting the main players in criminal gangs across the country next year.

Police Commissioner Owen Ellington has told the men and women under his command to go after the “significant actors” in organised crime and gangs come 2012.

“Some of these persons are little known; others are well known. In short, these are persons in the leadership of gangs … whose greed drives them to kill or order the killings of hundreds of Jamaicans each year … ,” said Ellington in the Force Orders released yesterday.

“The known ones are the gang leaders and their second-tier leadership. The little known ones are those who appear to be respectable business persons but whose activities cross over from the licit to illicit and provide the disguise for money laundering,” Ellington said.

The police have captured or killed several alleged major gangsters in the past two years leading to the disruption of a number of the gangs, but several other criminal groups continue to cause mayhem.