The Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard (TTCG) said that act­ing on in­for­ma­tion, on Thurs­day it in­ter­cept­ed a plea­sure craft in the Ch­aguara­mas area in the vicin­i­ty of Pier 1 a short time af­ter 8 pm.

Up­on in­ves­ti­ga­tions, it was found that the ves­sel had 14 peo­ple com­pris­ing six men and eight women on board in con­tra­ven­tion of the cur­rent COVID-19 Reg­u­la­tions.

The ves­sel and its oc­cu­pants were es­cort­ed to TTCG Head­quar­ters Staubles Bay where they were hand­ed over to mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.

The TTCG is ad­vis­ing the pub­lic that in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 6 of the De­fence Act Chap­ter 14:01 of the Laws of The Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go; 6. (1) An Of­fi­cer, Pet­ty Of­fi­cer or man in com­mand of any unit of the Coast Guard, in any case where he has rea­son­able cause to sus­pect that any ves­sel is en­gaged in any un­law­ful op­er­a­tion what­ev­er with­in the ter­ri­to­r­i­al arch­i­pel­ag­ic or in­ter­nal wa­ters of Trinidad and To­ba­go, may stop and board and search, with any as­sis­tance, any and every part of such ves­sel and if he thinks it nec­es­sary may di­rect such ves­sel to pro­ceed to such place as he may spec­i­fy.

(2) In ex­er­cise of the pow­er con­ferred by sub­sec­tion (1), such Of­fi­cer or Pet­ty Of­fi­cer or man may- (a) pur­sue and de­tain with any as­sis­tance any per­son whom he has rea­son to be­lieve is en­gaged in or as­sist­ing in the car­ry­ing on of any un­law­ful op­er­a­tion as afore­said; (b) use such force as may be nec­es­sary to com­pel a ves­sel to com­ply with any di­rec­tions he may give as to such ves­sel’s move­ments.

"Based on this au­thor­i­ty the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard con­tin­ues to pro­vide bor­der se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices in the face of the threat of Covid-19 in or­der to main­tain the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go through the con­duct of mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty pa­trols with­in our area of op­er­a­tions," a state­ment by the TTCG said.