MONTEGO BAY, JAMAICA, August, 29, 2026 - At three o'clock on the morning of 11 August, the bulldozers came into Cooper's Pen. By daylight some twenty predominantly concrete houses lay in ruins, flattened in a pre-dawn operation involving bulldozers, tractors and sledgehammers, carried out under the eyes of a bailiff and a strong police contingent.

Residents stood among the rubble pointing at furniture in the road; one man said he had lived on the property for 43 years. The land, known as Orange Grove, is owned by New Falmouth Resorts Limited, whose chairman sued 99 occupiers as far back as 2007.