Po­lice de­tained 28 un­doc­u­ment­ed South Amer­i­can mi­grants dur­ing an ear­ly morn­ing op­er­a­tion at a sports bar in St Ann’s Vil­lage, Ma­yaro.

The women, all Span­ish-speak­ing na­tion­als of Venezuela, were dis­cov­ered be­tween 1:50 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. to­day, Fri­day 6 June, dur­ing an in­tel­li­gence-led ex­er­cise con­duct­ed by of­fi­cers of the Na­tion­al Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Unit (NSOU).

They were tak­en to the Ma­yaro Po­lice Sta­tion, along with the bar own­er, who is as­sist­ing with on­go­ing en­quiries.

Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tors processed the lo­ca­tion, and med­ical ex­am­i­na­tions were con­duct­ed on the de­tainees. Both the Im­mi­gra­tion En­force­ment Sec­tion and the Counter-Traf­fick­ing Unit have been no­ti­fied and are ex­pect­ed to take fur­ther ac­tion.

The op­er­a­tion was co­or­di­nat­ed by As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Smith and Act­ing As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent St Clair, with sup­port from of­fi­cers in the East­ern Di­vi­sion.