INVESTIGATIONS into fake kidnappings have led police to a school-based drug cartel run by secondary school students.

A well-place source in the Protective Services told TnT Mirror that the new trend is at present engaging the attention of his seniors, and not just in the Police Service.

The Army and Coast Guard are also zooming in on criminal trends in secondary schools which Mirror sources revealed are becoming prevalent not just among students of the government schools, but also the so-called “prestige” schools.

Mirror also learned that the recent kidnapping of a teenager attending a prestige school in the East has not only proven to be a fake, but has uncovered a school-based narcotics ring run entirely by students of several prestige secondary schools.

The source was careful to say he was not implying that the student, who has since been charged with wasting police time, was part of the ring, but revealed that it was investigations into that matter that led to the discovery of deep-rooted organised criminal activity in a number of prestige schools in North and East Trinidad.

The source added that the operation, run by “baby-faced teens” is not simply a case of “monkey-see-monkey-do”.

“These youngsters operate like seasoned professional criminals. In fact, the operation is so covert, it has been going on for more than a year without anyone having a clue,” said the source.

Mirror also learned that teachers, parents, and siblings of the students concerned hadn’t the slightest clue as the slick students kept anyone who could be a snitch out of their network, includ-ing their fellow students.

The students’ operation is said to be so large that some police officers are convinced that the mastermind behind the operation has to be someone who has been in the illegal drugs trade for some time.

But others within the Protective Services involved in intelligence gathering have reason to believe that the youngsters, most of them the children of well-to-do persons, run the lucrative operation themselves.

With their innocent demeanour, age, and status of their parents as their cover, the operation is growing into a network involving several schools in the East-West Corridor and beyond.

Police and Army seniors are now said to be considering a massive undercover operation aimed at quietly flushing out criminal activity in the prestige schools.