Five peo­ple were ar­rest­ed for vary­ing of­fences, in­clud­ing kid­nap­ping and il­le­gal drugs pos­ses­sion, dur­ing a ma­jor an­ti-crime ex­er­cise con­duct­ed in the North­ern Polic­ing Di­vi­sion over the week­end.  The in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tion com­prised com­bined ex­e­cu­tion of search war­rants and road traf­fic ex­er­cis­es.

The Po­lice Ser­vice promis­es that the mul­ti-agency ef­fort, called ‘Op­er­a­tion Restora­tion’, will con­tin­ue for the fore­see­able fu­ture, and com­mend­ed the pub­lic for shar­ing in­for­ma­tion which can lead “to the ar­rest of crim­i­nals and makes their com­mu­ni­ties safe and se­cure”.

“The op­er­a­tion, close­ly guid­ed by crime sta­tis­tics analy­sis and in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing and meant to pro­vide a crime de­ter­rent through a strong and sus­tained po­lice pres­ence in the Di­vi­sion, took place be­tween the pe­ri­od Thurs­day 5th May, 2022 and Sun­day 8th May, 2022,” an of­fi­cial state­ment from the TTPS re­ports.

The Po­lice Ser­vice re­ports that dur­ing the course of the op­er­a­tion, sev­er­al search war­rants were ex­e­cut­ed in the Mal­abar, La Hor­quet­ta, Curepe, and Ari­ma dis­tricts and re­sult­ed in the ar­rest of five sus­pects.

One man was held in con­nec­tion with a re­port of kid­nap­ping which oc­curred in the Mal­abar dis­trict on May 2nd, 2022, while a 26-year-old of La Hor­quet­ta, was held for pos­ses­sion of a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na.

Of­fi­cers al­so ar­rest­ed a 54-year-old man on sus­pi­cion of il­le­gal­ly op­er­at­ing a com­mon gam­ing house, while a 43-year-old San­gre Grande man was held for pos­ses­sion of co­caine.

A fifth sus­pect, a 54-year-old of Ari­ma, was held for pos­ses­sion of ap­pa­ra­tus.

Mean­while, rov­ing traf­fic ex­er­cis­es con­duct­ed by the Ari­ma Traf­fic Staff and Ari­ma Op­er­a­tions Unit in the dis­trict to­day, Tues­day 10 May 2022, re­sult­ed in of­fi­cers is­su­ing 33 elec­tron­ic tick­ets for var­i­ous traf­fic of­fences in­clud­ing breach of the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route, fail­ing to wear a seat­belt, breach­ing a traf­fic sign and dri­ving with­out a cer­tifi­cate of in­sur­ance.

One man al­so was ar­rest­ed dur­ing the ex­er­cis­es on an out­stand­ing war­rant.

‘Op­er­a­tion Restora­tion’ was co­or­di­nat­ed by ACP Joanne Archie—per­form­ing the du­ties of DCP Op­er­a­tions—and ACP Joey Sama­roo.

The ex­er­cis­es were spear­head­ed by Snr. Supt. Pa­ponette, Supt. Ed­wards, ASP Eti­enne, In­sp. Pitt and su­per­vised by Sgt. Leopold and Sgt. (Ag.) Cal­don.

It al­so in­volved of­fi­cers of the North­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force, Ar­eas North and South, the Guard and Emer­gency Branch, the In­ter-Agency Task Force, the Task Force In­tel­li­gence Unit, the Gang Unit, the Mal­oney Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment, the Ari­ma Op­er­a­tions Unit, the Ca­nine Unit and mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force.