Ak­ile Si­mon

A 31-year-old Pe­tit Bourg man is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore a Port-of-Spain mag­is­trate this morn­ing charged with pos­ses­sion of $14 mil­lion worth of pure co­caine. The un­em­ployed man was al­so slapped with charges of il­le­gal pos­ses­sion of guns, am­mu­ni­tion and mar­i­jua­na.

He was ar­rest­ed at his Thomp­son Lane, San Juan, home by of­fi­cers as­signed to the Or­gan­ised Crime Nar­cotics and Firearms Bu­reau on Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon. Ac­cord­ing to the po­lice, around 2.30 pm, OC­NFB of­fi­cers ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant at the man's house and al­leged­ly found the items. Po­lice said two bags con­tain­ing 35 pack­ets of co­caine which car­ried a weight of 35 kilo­grammes were found.

Of­fi­cers al­so al­leged­ly re­cov­ered three pack­ets and one bale of loose and com­pressed mar­i­jua­na. The mar­i­jua­na had an es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of $40,000. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said they al­so seized a ful­ly- loaded Smith and Wes­son 9 mil­lime­tre pis­tol and a Tau­rus firearm which con­tained a laser beam.

The sus­pect, who is known to po­lice, was tak­en in­to cus­tody and lat­er charged with pos­ses­sion of co­caine and mar­i­jua­na for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing, and il­le­gal pos­ses­sion of two ful­ly loaded pis­tols. Of­fi­cers said the man had been un­der sur­veil­lance for quite some­time. This is the largest co­caine in­ter­dic­tion ex­er­cise car­ried out by the OC­NFB for the year. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.