Thir­ty-three per­sons were ar­rest­ed dur­ing ex­er­cis­es con­duct­ed through­out Fri­day across sev­er­al di­vi­sions. The ex­er­cis­es al­so re­sult­ed in the seizure of five guns, a quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion and drugs, and a bul­let­proof vest.

A stolen ve­hi­cle and sev­er­al stolen items were al­so re­cov­ered. North East­ern Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers, on re­ceiv­ing re­ports of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion be­ing stored in an aban­doned struc­ture on Man­go George Hill, 7th Av­enue, Mal­ick pro­ceed­ed to the lo­ca­tion around 4:45 pm on Fri­day. Dur­ing a search of the area, they re­cov­ered a black plas­tic bag from a garbage heap which al­leged­ly con­tained one AK-47 fit­ted with a mag­a­zine con­tain­ing nine rounds of 7.62-mil­lime­tre am­mu­ni­tion and a pair of mo­tor ve­hi­cle num­ber plates.

A bul­let­proof vest was al­so found hid­den be­tween gal­va­nize sheets. Three per­sons were ar­rest­ed af­ter they at­tempt­ed to flee from of­fi­cers of the North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Task Force – Area East at Hin­dus­tan Trace, Hen­ry Street, Arou­ca. A sil­ver and black firearm with a mag­a­zine con­tain­ing 10 rounds of nine-mil­lime­tre am­mu­ni­tion was al­so found.

Quick work by of­fi­cers in the Di­vi­sion led to the ap­pre­hen­sion of a rob­bery sus­pect short­ly af­ter he al­leged­ly snatched a purse from a woman walk­ing along St. Michael Road, Tacarigua. The stolen items were al­so re­cov­ered.

An an­ti-crime ex­er­cise in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion led to the ar­rest of a 50-year-old man for pos­ses­sion of firearm and pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion af­ter po­lice seized one Glock Pis­tol fit­ted with one mag­a­zine and twelve rounds of nine-mil­lime­tre am­mu­ni­tion. A 28-year-old Freeport man was al­so ar­rest­ed for pos­ses­sion of co­caine dur­ing the ex­er­cise.

Dur­ing a sim­i­lar ex­er­cise con­duct­ed in Area South of the Di­vi­sion, based on in­tel­li­gence re­ceived, of­fi­cers pro­ceed­ed to For­est Park Dump Road, Clax­ton Bay. They ob­served two males, one with a back­pack walk­ing along the road, who, on see­ing the of­fi­cers be­gan run­ning. How­ev­er, they es­caped in some near­by bush­es af­ter drop­ping the back­pack. One Tau­rus .38 re­volver fit­ted with two rounds .38spl am­mu­ni­tion and 1/2 kilo­gramme of com­pressed high-grade cannabis were al­leged­ly found in the bag.

A joint an­ti-crime ex­er­cise in­volv­ing of­fi­cers of the Stolen Ve­hi­cles Squad, An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit and Im­mi­gra­tion South and North was al­so con­duct­ed in the Di­vi­sion. A Cou­va man was de­tained dur­ing the ex­er­cise. Of­fi­cers al­so wrecked the white Toy­ota Aqua he was dri­ving af­ter checks re­vealed that it had been re­port­ed stolen from a carpark in Ch­agua­nas in Sep­tem­ber 2022. The man was con­veyed to the Ch­agua­nas Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment.

Mean­while, in the South­ern Di­vi­sion, 10 per­sons are cur­rent­ly as­sist­ing po­lice re­gard­ing en­quiries re­lat­ed to var­i­ous of­fences.

Twelve war­rants were al­so ex­e­cut­ed dur­ing an ex­er­cise con­duct­ed by Court and Process Area East. Six per­sons were ar­rest­ed in re­la­tion to same. Four per­sons were ar­rest­ed for drug-re­lat­ed of­fences by the South­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force Area East. One of the four, a 48-year-old labour­er, was for­mal­ly charged for pos­ses­sion of co­caine for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing. He is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear at the Princes Town Mag­is­trates’ Court on Mon­day. An 18-year-old Bar­rack­pore man will al­so be ap­pear­ing on the same date af­ter be­ing ar­rest­ed and charged for pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion.

Three men are cur­rent­ly as­sist­ing of­fi­cers re­lat­ed to en­quiries in­to var­i­ous of­fences, in­clud­ing lar­ce­ny, rob­bery with vi­o­lence, and shoot­ings af­ter an an­ti-crime ex­er­cise con­duct­ed in the West­ern Di­vi­sion. A Care­nage man was al­so ar­rest­ed in re­la­tion to a re­port of Rob­bery, while a Diego Mar­tin man was ar­rest­ed rel­a­tive to a re­port of store break­ing and lar­ce­ny