The UNC Sex Ring:
Trinidad's State Escort Service

A prostitution ring run out of government facilities. Colombian women trafficked to ministers. No arrests. And now the same party is back in power.

The Operation: A State-Funded Brothel Hidden in Plain Sight

According to the original TnT Mirror exposé dated February 10, 2012, officials at the Public Transport Service Corporation complained directly to Transport Minister Devant Maharaj that PTSC facilities were being used by a senior State official to facilitate a prostitution ring.

The ring masqueraded as an "escort service." Its clientele? State board officials and government ministers. The women — primarily Colombian nationals — were brokered through a legitimate-looking Facebook group popular with young UNC professionals that held regular after-work "limes." Inside those limes, pre-screened members were quietly offered the women.

This was not a back-alley operation. It ran out of a Port of Spain hotel with established ties to the Government's tourism thrust — meaning the same State apparatus funding tourism promotion was, by design or negligence, providing cover for the trafficking.

Ravi Ratiram: The Operative They Couldn't Touch

At the center of the operation was Ravi Ratiram — PTSC Deputy General Manager (Properties) and a former temporary United National Congress Senator. A "well-known operative of the UNC" who had served at the parliamentary level, Ratiram had already been involved in an incident requiring police attention in 2011 — the year before the exposé. According to the Mirror, he also supplied "escorts" for bachelor parties and private gatherings.

When confronted, Ratiram's defense was a masterclass in plausible deniability: "I am not aware of any investigation … that is news to me." He denied knowledge of the escort service entirely and asked where the allegations were coming from. He kept his job.

The Facebook Front: A "Lime" Group Weaponized

The most chilling detail of the 2012 investigation is how the trafficking was hidden inside a legitimate social network. The Facebook group was established after the People's Partnership won office in 2010. Its stated purpose: let young UNC professionals exchange information, network, and socialize.

Its real function, according to sources: a client-acquisition pipeline. Invitation-only after-work events, often announced on as little as one day's notice, where carefully selected, pre-screened members would be offered Colombian women. UNC general secretary Dave Tancoo admitted he knew the group existed and had been invited to its functions — though he claimed he never attended.

One source told the Mirror plainly: "This was fine for a while but then people started falling off and there are those who were getting into all kinds of mischief, so anything is possible."

"Anything is possible" — the unofficial motto of every UNC scandal that never gets investigated.

The Probe That Wasn't: Michael Jackson's Phantom Report

Under mounting pressure, Transport Minister Devant Maharaj announced a PTSC internal investigation headed by Security Manager Michael Jackson. A report was promised by March 5, 2012. Jackson interviewed witnesses — including people who claimed they were approached to be clients — and sought information from the Mirror itself during a visit to the newspaper's office.

Crucially, the Mirror reported that "several incriminating photos had been found on a cell phone" and that further checks were being run on the Port of Spain hotel where the prostitutes allegedly met clients. Jackson's probe was to determine whether government ministers and State board officials were involved.

Then — silence. No public report. No arrests. No charges. No discipline. The investigation, like every UNC internal probe before it, dissolved into the memory hole. The ministers kept their posts. Ratiram kept his job. The women were never identified, never protected, never mentioned again.

Devant Maharaj's Empty Promises

Transport Minister Maharaj played his part to perfection. On the record, he promised the world:

Read that last line again. The minister publicly vouched for the character of the official accused of running a prostitution ring inside his own ministry. That is not an investigation. That is a public clearance in advance.

They're Back: The UNC Returns to Power in 2025

Here is where the story stops being history and becomes a warning. On April 28, 2025, the United National Congress — led once again by Kamla Persad-Bissessar — won the general election and returned to government. The same party. The same political machine. Many of the same operatives, financiers, and fixers who built and shielded the networks exposed in 2012.

The 2012 sex ring was never dismantled — it was parked. No one went to prison. No one lost a pension. The infrastructure (the Facebook groups, the hotel connections, the State-board access, the donor networks) was never forensically audited. The people who looked the other way were rewarded with continued relevance. Now they control State resources again — the same PTSC, the same boards, the same ministries.

Ask yourself: if a political party can run a prostitution ring out of a State corporation, traffick foreign women to its own ministers, get caught, and face zero consequences — what else are they running?

This is the pattern of elite impunity in Trinidad and Tobago. The Akiel Chambers coverup. The Section 34 affair. The Reshmi Ramnarine scandal. The E-mailgate affair. And this — a documented sex-trafficking operation run out of PTSC by a sitting party operative. Every time, the same response: deny, delay, dissipate. And then return to power as if nothing happened.

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