An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Ju­nior Ben­jamin has re­in­forced the warn­ing that the au­thor­i­ties will not tol­er­ate any breach­es of the law.

In a state­ment dat­ed March 16, fol­low­ing a spe­cial op­er­a­tion in Cen­tral Trinidad dur­ing which a cache of weapons was seized, he said, “This op­er­a­tion high­lights the ded­i­ca­tion and in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven ap­proach of our law en­force­ment teams. I com­mend the ef­forts of all agen­cies in­volved in this seizure for their swift and co­or­di­nat­ed re­sponse, which led to the re­moval of dan­ger­ous firearms from our streets.”

He as­sured, “We re­main re­lent­less in our pur­suit of those who threat­en pub­lic safe­ty and will con­tin­ue to dis­man­tle crim­i­nal net­works with pre­ci­sion and force. Let this serve as a clear mes­sage—there is no place for or­gan­ised crime in our com­mu­ni­ties.”

Fol­low­ing the in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven op­er­a­tion con­duct­ed by a spe­cial­ist unit with tac­ti­cal sup­port from the South­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force (SDTF) un­der the su­per­vi­sion of Snr Supt Rod­hill Kirk, three sus­pects were ar­rest­ed.

The op­er­a­tion, which was co-or­di­nat­ed by the Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Suzette Mar­tin, was launched on March 15, af­ter of­fi­cers re­ceived cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion which in­di­cat­ed that sev­er­al armed in­di­vid­u­als were gath­ered at a house at Shaw­field Dri­ve, Ed­in­burgh Vil­lage, Ch­agua­nas.

It was al­leged the group had been prepar­ing to launch an at­tack on a ri­val gang.

When they ar­rived, the of­fi­cers saw a white Toy­ota Aqua parked on the pave­ment, with a group of men stand­ing around it.

They ini­ti­at­ed a ve­hi­cle in­ter­cep­tion, and the men were de­tained.

When the of­fi­cers opened the trunk of the car, they saw a large cache of firearms.

They seized the weapons and de­tained a 22-year-old man from Sev­enth Street, Ed­in­burgh 500; a 43-year-old man from Fifth Street, Spring­land, Gas­par­il­lo; and a 20-year-old man from Ca­can­dee Road, Fe­lic­i­ty, Ch­agua­nas.