Mark Bas­sant

Lead Ed­i­tor, In­ves­tiga­tive

The Coast Guard yes­ter­day in­ter­cept­ed a for­eign tanker, Throne, off the north coast of Trinidad and seized near­ly 400 kilo­grammes of co­caine with an es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of $160 mil­lion.

Se­nior in­tel­li­gence sources with knowl­edge about the op­er­a­tion told Guardian Me­dia that a spe­cial team of of­fi­cers led by Ja­son Kelshall from the De­fence Force and the Spe­cial Naval Unit (SNU) board­ed the boat in the wee hours of Tues­day morn­ing.

At least ten per­sons were aboard when the high-pow­ered team of of­fi­cers stormed the ves­sel.

In­tel­li­gence sources said the crew mem­bers who were hid­ing were round­ed up and ques­tioned about the il­le­gal con­tra­band.

A thor­ough search of the ves­sel was made by the of­fi­cers and they dis­cov­ered the 400 kilo­grammes of co­caine well hid­den in the ves­sel’s fu­el tanks. Sources say that the of­fi­cers had to “do a de­struc­tive search” of the fu­el tanks to find the hid­den stash that was kept in a se­cret en­clo­sure and tight­ly wrapped in ma­te­r­i­al that was wa­ter­proof.

“The in­tel­li­gence for this op­er­a­tion would have come with the help of for­eign as­sis­tance,” one in­tel­li­gence source told Guardian Me­dia.

In­tel­li­gence sources say ma­jor de­tails about the op­er­a­tion was be­ing kept “un­der wraps.”

Guardian Me­dia was un­able to as­cer­tain the tanker’s des­ti­na­tion- whether it was des­tined to dock in Trinidad and To­ba­go or if had been pass­ing through our wa­ters when it was in­ter­cept­ed and board­ed. This news­pa­per was al­so un­able to as­cer­tain the na­tion­al­i­ties of the crew mem­bers.

The tanker was lat­er brought to Staubles Bay in Ch­aguara­mas.

Up to late yes­ter­day evening, there was a bee­hive of ac­tiv­i­ty at the base. Guardian Me­dia was in­formed that the con­tra­band was hand­ed over to the po­lice along with the crew mem­bers.

Last year in ear­ly April, Cus­toms and T&T Coast Guard of­fi­cials re­cov­ered close to $120 mil­lion worth of co­caine hid­den aboard a for­eign tanker that was docked at the At­lantic Liqui­fied Nat­ur­al Gas (LNG) port in Point Fortin

Cus­toms sources had told Guardian Me­dia that sev­en bales of co­caine were found at­tached to the rud­der of the ship His­pania Spir­it. The rud­der is a big met­al flap at­tached to the tail of the ship that as­sists in the steer­ing of the ves­sel.