Close to 70 peo­ple, in­clud­ing al­leged un­der­world fig­ures, are now in po­lice cus­tody af­ter they were held at a gam­bling den in San Juan just af­ter 11 pm on Mon­day for con­tra­ven­ing the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors told Guardian Me­dia that a team of of­fi­cers from the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) head­ed by Sgt Mark Her­nan­dez, act­ing on in­for­ma­tion, went to a prop­er­ty up­stairs the build­ing, which al­so hous­es a Roy­al Cas­tle out­let. The build­ing is a stone’s throw away from the San Juan Po­lice Sub­sta­tion and the up­stairs sec­tion where the sus­pects were held once housed a night­club.

The of­fi­cers found 61 men and sev­en women gath­ered gam­bling on the premis­es.

The gath­er­ing far ex­ceed­ed the stip­u­lat­ed num­ber of ten peo­ple al­lowed to con­gre­gate un­der the COVID-19 re­stric­tions. Of­fi­cers have al­so so far re­cov­ered onen il­le­gal firearm.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith is al­so cur­rent­ly on the scene.

Last Sat­ur­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced more re­laxed COVID-19 re­stric­tions which kicked in from Mon­day, al­low­ing bar­bers and hair­dressers to re­open along with spa and do­mes­tic work­ers al­lowed to re­turn to work.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so an­nounced that come June 20 he will al­low bars, cin­e­mas and many oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties to re­sume op­er­a­tions. How­ev­er, he in­di­cat­ed that pub­lic gath­er­ings of on­ly up to ten peo­ple would be al­lowed.

More on this sto­ry as news comes to hand.