Gangs used women to purchase SIM cards

It was revealed in the Clansman -One Don Gang trial yesterday that a number of women from Spanish Town, St Catherine and one from as far as Falmouth, Trelawny, were among several persons who had purchased SIM cards which were used by alleged gang members.

A communication analyst, while detailing the subscriber information received from one of the country's main telecommunication service providers, disclosed that seven out of the 10 subscribers whose names were listed on the accounts were females, some of them appearing on multiple accounts. A confessed top-tier member of the gang, who is a prosecution witness, had previously testified that the gang members changed their SIM cards regularly and used different persons to purchase them.

Based on the data that was shared by the detective sergeant, who is an expert witness, only two members of the alleged gang had personally subscribed to that service provider, the lone female defendant, Stephanie 'Muma' Christie, the so-called St Thomas pastor, and an ex-gang member, who is now a state witness.

The other alleged gangsters including the alleged leader, Andre 'Blackman' Bryan, the alleged deputy leader, Jason 'City Puss' Brown, defendants Fabian 'Crocs' Johnson, Jahzeal 'Squeeze Eye' Blake, Marco 'Ezzy' Miller and Ruel 'Rell' Taylor were however attributed to the SIM card numbers as being the users.

The data presented also showed that some of the defendants had multiple numbers including Bryan, who had four numbers, and Brown who had five numbers, although they were both behind bars at the time. The court further heard that there was consistent communication between the alleged gangsters and the former community don, who was one of Bryan's personal drivers.

The expert, using a link chart, showed that between January and August 2019, there were numerous calls made to and from three phones that were being used by the prosecution witness. Those three phones were also used by the witness to secretly record the conversations with his alleged cronies, which were then turned over to the police.

The record showed that Bryan, in one instance, called one of the Crown witness' phones 250 times and 384 times using another of his numbers, while Brown had used one of his numbers to call the witness 740 times.

The witness will continue detailing the phone records data today when the trial resumes in the Home Circuit Court.