The cap­tain of a ves­sel is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore the Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer to an­swer for 34 breach­es—17 for trans­port­ing per­sons with­out a pass­port, and a fur­ther 17 for trans­port­ing per­sons with­out a Visa.

The charges stem from an in­ci­dent where the TTPS’ Coastal Sup­port Unit in­ter­cept­ed a ves­sel off the North Coast of Trinidad and de­tained 20 in­di­vid­u­als.

Ac­cord­ing to a state­ment from the Po­lice Ser­vice, at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 5:30 am on Mon­day 9 Sep­tem­ber 2024, the Coastal Sup­port Unit (CSU) re­ceived in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing a per­son of in­ter­est spot­ted in the First Bo­ca/Monos Is­land coastal area. Of­fi­cers PC Val­ley and PC Ma­son re­spond­ed im­me­di­ate­ly and around 6 am, the CSU of­fi­cers in­ter­cept­ed a 28-foot pirogue, south of the Sec­ond Bo­ca. The ves­sel bore no name, nor did it have a reg­is­tra­tion num­ber, and it was oc­cu­pied by 20 in­di­vid­u­als.

Among those de­tained were three adult Trinida­di­an males from Care­nage: a 29-year-old; a 32-year-old; and a 27-year-old who was the ves­sel's cap­tain and a Pri­vate in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment.

The re­main­ing 17 oc­cu­pants ap­peared to be for­eign na­tion­als, con­sist­ing of 11 men, three women, one male child, and two fe­male chil­dren. None of these in­di­vid­u­als were car­ry­ing trav­el doc­u­ments.

The TTPS re­ports that al­though no il­le­gal items were found on board, of­fi­cers seized some TT$11,420 and US$20 in cash, along with two bot­tles of al­co­hol, a mar­ket bag con­tain­ing crabs, and a cool­er with guavas.

Fol­low­ing the ini­tial de­ten­tion at Coast Guard Head­quar­ters at Staubles Bay, 12 per­sons were re­leased on an Or­der of Su­per­vi­sion, while five per­sons were de­tained and sent to the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre.

En­quiries are con­tin­u­ing.