The coun­try’s most want­ed man, de­scribed by po­lice as very dan­ger­ous and a sus­pect in sev­er­al mur­ders dat­ing back to 2016, was ar­rest­ed in an Op­er­a­tion Strike Back an­ti-crime po­lice ex­er­cise over the week­end.

Act­ing in in­tel­li­gence re­ceived, of­fi­cers led by ACP Mc Don­ald Ja­cob went an apart­ment in D’abadie and ar­rest­ed the 30-year-old sus­pect. They said they found in his pos­ses­sion a loaded Glock 17 pis­tol, an ex­tend­ed mag­a­zine clip con­tain­ing eight rounds of 9 mm am­mu­ni­tion and a sock with 32 rounds of 9 mm am­mu­ni­tion.

A re­lease from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) yes­ter­day con­firmed that the most want­ed man, who orig­i­nal­ly lived at Ama­r­alis Dri­ve, La Hor­quet­ta, had been tak­en in­to cus­tody. He is ex­pect­ed to be placed in sev­er­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rades this week.

Po­lice sources told the Guardian Me­dia he is the main sus­pect in sev­er­al dri­ve-by shoot­ings in the D’abadie area in which more than 13 peo­ple have been killed since 2016.

The TTPS al­so con­firmed that two re­put­ed gang lead­ers from the Port-of-Spain area de­tained by po­lice dur­ing the in­tel­li­gence and ev­i­dence led op­er­a­tions last week have been charged for var­i­ous of­fences. How­ev­er, three oth­ers—Cedric “Burkie” Burke, his son Reval­do Burke and Akani “Dole” Adams—who were held on Fri­day morn­ing in con­nec­tion with gang ac­tiv­i­ties and shoot­ings were re­leased from po­lice cus­tody at about 9 am yes­ter­day. Writs of habeas cor­pus filed on their be­half by their at­tor­neys in the Port-of-Spain High Court be­fore Judge Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well were served on Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith close to mid­night on Sat­ur­day.

Al­so on Fri­day, writs of habeas cor­pus were filed on be­half of An­tho­ny “Boom­bay” Boney and Quin­cy Fe­lix and they were re­leased at about 9 am on Sat­ur­day. All five men were among 33 peo­ple de­tained for gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties since Wednes­day in the Port-of-Spain, Beetham Gar­dens and Sea Lots ar­eas.

The TTPS said since the de­ten­tion of these in­di­vid­u­als “there was not a homi­cide, shoot­ing or wound­ing at­trib­uted to gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty.” In the five days pri­or to TTPS red alert, there were 22 gang-re­lat­ed in­ci­dents, in­clud­ing mur­ders and shoot­ings.

CoP Grif­fith com­mend­ed of­fi­cers of the North­ern and Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sions for their ded­i­ca­tion and hard work which made the ar­rests pos­si­ble.

The spe­cial task force in­clud­ed of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team, Guard and Emer­gency Branch, Ca­nine Unit, In­ter-Agency Task Force, North­ern Di­vi­sion Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment, the North­ern and Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion Task Force and the Or­gan­ised Crime and In­tel­li­gence Unit.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.