Mark Bas­sant

Lead Ed­i­tor, In­ves­tiga­tive Desk

C-4 ex­plo­sives and three firearms were found buried out­side the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison in Arou­ca by of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) and the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Group (NSSOG) in the ear­ly hours of Thurs­day morn­ing.

Se­nior po­lice sources fa­mil­iar with the find be­lieve that this is part of a more sin­is­ter plot afoot by crim­i­nal el­e­ments with­in the walls of the MSP and that the law en­force­ment of­fi­cers had pos­si­bly foiled a jail­break at­tempt.

Dur­ing the search, spear­head­ed by new­ly-ap­point­ed SORT head, Su­per­in­ten­dent Roger Alexan­der, the ex­plo­sives were found buried a few feet down in a gar­den area, near a bam­boo patch, ac­cord­ing to se­nior po­lice sources on the scene.

C-4 is com­posed of ex­plo­sives, plas­tic binder, plas­ti­ciz­er to make it mal­leable and usu­al­ly a mark­er or odor­iz­ing tag­gant chem­i­cal.

Dur­ing their search, which came af­ter the team ob­tained in­for­ma­tion from a cred­i­ble source, the of­fi­cers al­so un­cov­ered one re­volver, two pis­tols and an AR-15 buried in the dirt. They al­so found three mag­a­zines and at least 27 rounds of as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion. The crude­ly-made home ex­plo­sives were found at­tached to yel­low and red wires.

The MSP hous­es pris­on­ers who have com­mit­ted se­ri­ous of­fences, in­clud­ing mur­der, kid­nap­ping, rape and rob­bery.

Se­nior po­lice sources told Guardian Me­dia that they were con­cerned about the find and it is quite pos­si­ble se­cu­ri­ty will have to be beefed up in and around the MSP with the co­or­di­na­tion of prison of­fi­cials in the com­ing days.

At least two se­nior prison sources, speak­ing on the con­di­tion of strict anonymi­ty ear­ly this morn­ing, told Guardian Me­dia that for some time, prison of­fi­cials have been hear­ing about an at­tempt­ed jail­break plot by a no­to­ri­ous gang with­in the prison walls.

Supt Alexan­der, who spoke briefly with Guardian Me­dia, said the mat­ter was un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion at this time. Alexan­der was ap­point­ed to the post of SORT head in late April by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith.