Four men and one woman were ar­rest­ed and charged for var­i­ous of­fences by of­fi­cers of the South­ern Di­vi­sion dur­ing an an­ti-crime ex­er­cise which tar­get­ed or­gan­ised crim­i­nal gangs in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day.

They are all ex­pect­ed to ap­pear vir­tu­al­ly be­fore a San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trate to­day to an­swer to the charges.

The in­tel­li­gence-led ex­er­cise was co­or­di­nat­ed by Snr. Supt. Lu­cia Win­ches­ter, and spear­head­ed by ASP Ram­dass and In­sp. Phillip and was con­duct­ed be­tween 3 pm and 9 pm, on Sun­day 18th Ju­ly 2021. It al­so in­clud­ed of­fi­cers of the South­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force, Ca­nine Branch and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment.

Dur­ing the ex­er­cise, search­es were con­duct­ed at Mt. Mo­ri­ah, Whar­ton Street, Pur­cell Street, Vista­bel­la, Em­ba­cadere, Flam­boy­ant Av­enue, Hi­bis­cus Dri­ve, Ole­an­der Dri­ve, and Pleas­antville.

Five per­sons were ar­rest­ed and charged for var­i­ous of­fences as fol­lows:

- JOSHUA HOL­FORD, 34, of Mara­bel­la, was ar­rest­ed for pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na and charged by WPC Maxwell;

- EM­MANUEL HUTCHIN­SON, 22, of Pleas­antville, was ar­rest­ed for pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na and charged by PC Ed­wards;

- RAY­MOND THOMAS, 21, of San Fer­nan­do, was ar­rest­ed for dis­or­der­ly be­hav­iour and re­sist­ing ar­rest and charged by PC Ram­lochan; and,

- AN­THO­NY CYRUS, 44 and RESH­MA CYRUS, 44, both of Corinth Hills, San Fer­nan­do, were ar­rest­ed for cul­ti­vat­ing 30 mar­i­jua­na plants and were charged by PC Fer­gu­son.

The of­fi­cers then pro­ceed­ed to Hi­bis­cus Dri­ve, Pleas­antville, around 8:10 pm, where they ob­served a man walk­ing along the road­way.

Up­on see­ing the of­fi­cers, the man dropped an ob­ject on­to the road­way and ran off. Checks of the area re­sult­ed in one Mac 10 firearm loaded with a mag­a­zine con­tain­ing six rounds of am­mu­ni­tion be­ing found. At­tempts to lo­cate the sus­pect proved fu­tile.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.