Rowley told parliament that an audit of the Strategic Services Agency (SSA) found that 28 members were “influenced” since May by the cult “to the detriment of national security”.

The audit found “disturbing practices of nepotism and opportunism”, with members and associates of a church “found to have been surreptitiously employed in this agency”, Rowley said in a statement to ministers.

“Such persons belonged to a cult which was arming itself while preaching a doctrine for trained military and paramilitary personnel with a religious calling to be the most suitable to replace the country’s political leadership,” he said, without identifying the cult.

Local media said the cult belonged to Ian Brown, a pastor and self-claimed spy who was reportedly charged in May with misbehaviour in public office.

Rowley said the cult was “exerting high levels of influence on the affairs of the agency to the detriment of national security”.

The 28 SSA members were dismissed and charged with violating the agency’s regulations and abnormal recruitment, he said.

The audit also found that the SSA had established an unauthorised, highly trained and militarised “tactical response unit,” Rowley told ministers.

The unit was terminated in March and its activities are being reviewed by both the SSA and the Trinidad and Tobago police force.

“Why would an intelligence-gathering organisation … consider it necessary to have an operational unit of this nature and scale in secret?” Rowley said.

The audit also found “a clear need for improved management” of equipment inventory to process “the increased stock of firearms and ammunition now held by the SSA”, he said.