Sacha Wil­son

Port-of-Spain de­tec­tives made a ma­jor drug bust yes­ter­day, seiz­ing more than $1.5 mil­lion worth of mar­i­jua­na in a 20-foot con­tain­er in tran­sit from Port-of-Spain to south Trinidad.

The of­fi­cers made the bust af­ter 1 pm yes­ter­day af­ter the truck stopped at an iso­lat­ed area, along a dirt track, known as Amer­i­can Flats in Williamsville. The de­tec­tives fol­lowed the truck which pulled out of the Port-of-Spain port around 11 am. In­side the red trail­er, the of­fi­cers dis­cov­ered large brown pack­ages of com­pressed mar­i­jua­na in

cro­cus bags. Four peo­ple, aged be­tween 20 and 50, were ar­rest­ed and tak­en to Port-of-Spain.

At the scene yes­ter­day, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er James Philbert as­sured that a full-scale in­ves­ti­ga­tion would be car­ried out to pin­point the ori­gin of the drugs. Con­grat­u­lat­ing the po­lice of­fi­cers for good in­tel­li­gence work, Philbert said they had been con­duct­ing sur­veil­lance for days. "We are proud of them," he said. Philbert could not say where the drugs came from, but said: "This points to some kind of con­spir­a­cy," to bring the drugs in the coun­try.

"For­tu­nate­ly, we have a num­ber of ves­sels in the sea re­strict­ing them com­ing in­to T&T. Per­haps this is an­oth­er ven­ture by those who are very in­tent on keep­ing our so­ci­ety drugged so they could bring their prod­uct in­to the coun­try," he said. Philbert said they were await­ing the ar­rival of the Cus­toms Au­thor­i­ty to as­sist them with their in­ves­ti­ga­tions. He said peo­ple will be charged.

In­volved in the ex­er­cise were of­fi­cers of the Port-of-Spain Task Force, Crime Sup­pres­sion Unit, Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment and oth­er law en­force­ment units. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.