Ak­ile Si­mon

De­tec­tives of Port-of-Spain CID seized a large quan­ti­ty of knives and ar­rest­ed sev­er­al sus­pects as they en­tered the city, be­fore the start of J'Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions, dur­ing the ear­ly hours of yes­ter­day morn­ing. Among those ar­rest­ed were two Guyanese women. They were re­leased lat­er by po­lice and their trav­el doc­u­ments seized, pend­ing ver­i­fi­ca­tion of their sta­tus in the coun­try.

From as ear­ly as 1.30 am, CID of­fi­cers, led by act­ing ASP Sa­hadeo Singh and Cpl An­dre Lopez, searched hun­dreds of pas­sen­gers as they dis­em­barked from maxi taxis at the City Gate trans­porta­tion hub. Nine peo­ple were held for pos­ses­sion of knives, while three sus­pects were de­tained for pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na. One woman, po­lice said, had a sur­gi­cal blade con­cealed be­tween the cleav­age of her breasts, while a male sus­pect was held with a flick knife hid­den in his crotch.

Oth­er weapons and mar­i­jua­na were al­so found hid­den in sus­pects' hair, hats, shoes and bras, po­lice said. Up to late yes­ter­day, checks at the CID of­fice re­vealed that more than 100 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed for var­i­ous of­fences with­in the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion.