Camille Clarke

As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice Joanne Archie said law en­force­ment of­fi­cers were in­ves­ti­gat­ing a pos­si­ble drug link be­tween T&T and Ja­maica af­ter sev­er­al ar­rests were made with­in the past few months. Archie was speak­ing at yes­ter­day's dai­ly me­dia press con­fer­ence at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain. She said the Or­gan­ised, Crime, Firearms and Nar­cotics Bu­reau (OCFNB) was in­ves­ti­gat­ing and hold­ing in­ter­ac­tion with stake­hold­ers and coun­tries. Archie was com­ment­ing on the ar­rests of two Ja­maican na­tion­als on Wednes­day at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port af­ter they were al­leged to be in the pos­ses­sion of a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na with a street val­ue of close to $300,000.

When ques­tioned about the link of drugs com­ing in­to Trinidad, Archie said: "The OCFNB in­ves­ti­ga­tions are wide and they in­ter­act with bod­ies and coun­tries. They will take note of that. What I can tell you is they are aware of the ar­rests and are pur­su­ing cer­tain av­enues." The two na­tion­als ar­rived on two sep­a­rate Caribbean Air­lines flights at 1.30 pm and 3.45 pm. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers first re­fused to al­low one of the Ja­maicans to en­ter the coun­try. Of­fi­cers of the Or­gan­ised Crime, Firearms and Nar­cotics Bu­reau then searched the first sus­pect. Po­lice said they dis­cov­ered a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na, weigh­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1.539 kilo­grammes, hid­den be­low some Ja­maican pat­ties in a duf­fel bag.

The oth­er sus­pect al­leged­ly had a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na, weigh­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1.93 kilo­grams, strapped on­to his body. The sus­pects ap­peared be­fore an Ari­ma mag­is­trate yes­ter­day.In the past few months, sev­er­al peo­ple have been ar­rest­ed and charged with pos­ses­sion of high-grade mar­i­jua­na from Ja­maica. The ar­rests were made at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port and oth­er ar­eas. When ques­tioned about the lack of ar­rests of gang mem­bers, Archie said dis­cus­sions with the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) were on­go­ing.