The Po­lice Ser­vice has con­firmed the seizure of an es­ti­mat­ed TT$17.7 mil­lion worth of high-grade mar­i­jua­na in the South-West­ern Di­vi­sion yes­ter­day.

An of­fi­cial state­ment from the TTPS says of­fi­cers re­ceived in­tel­li­gence that a ma­jor drug traf­fick­ing net­work op­er­at­ing in the South-West­ern penin­su­la had smug­gled a large quan­ti­ty of nar­cotics over the week­end.

The TTPS says that in­for­ma­tion led the team to an apart­ment lo­cat­ed at Dow Vil­lage, South Oropouche.

A search of the premis­es re­sult­ed in the dis­cov­ery and seizure of a sig­nif­i­cant quan­ti­ty of high-grade mar­i­jua­na.

Among the nar­cotics seized was a to­tal of 66 pack­ets of US grown mar­i­jua­na weigh­ing 48.7 kilo­grammes with an es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of TT$12,170,378 as well as 51 pack­ets of Colom­bian grown mar­i­jua­na weigh­ing 51 kilo­grammes with an es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of TT$5,597,097.

The haul of 117 pack­ets of mar­i­jua­na has a to­tal weight of 99.7 kilo­grammes with an es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of TT$17,767,475.

One man, a 63-year-old of South Oropouche, was ar­rest­ed for the of­fence of pos­ses­sion of cannabis for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing.

In the wake of the seizure, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher re­newed her call to the pub­lic to con­tin­ue shar­ing in­for­ma­tion about crime in their com­mu­ni­ties with the po­lice, "so that the scourge of drugs and gun of­fences can be halt­ed."

“This re­cent ex­er­cise was part of the TTPS’s on­go­ing ef­forts to dis­man­tle il­le­gal drug and firearms trade net­works op­er­at­ing with­in our bor­ders and bring per­pe­tra­tors to swift jus­tice,” she said in the TTPS re­lease.

The top cop praised the dili­gent work of the in­tel­li­gence unit and the Task Force of­fi­cers of South­ern Di­vi­sion for the seizure.

The po­lice op­er­a­tion took place be­tween 1 pm and 8 pm on June 4, 2024. Co­or­di­nat­ed by Snr. Supt. Sood­een, ASP Phillip and In­sp. Mo­hammed, it in­clud­ed of­fi­cers of the South­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force.