Five peo­ple have been de­tained so far in the Las Cuevas area dur­ing an on­go­ing joint Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty forces in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tion that be­gan dur­ing the ear­ly hours of Thurs­day morn­ing. An undis­closed quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion, bul­let proof vests and high pow­ered weapons have al­so been seized.

The lock­down of the north­ern coastal ar­eas comes 21 days af­ter Vaughn "Sand­man" Mieres, his wife and two of his body­guards were killed in Mieres' house.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that mem­bers of the T&T De­fence Force, T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, and T&T Coast Guard are car­ry­ing out ex­ten­sive search­es on land and sea. The law en­force­ment of­fi­cers al­so have the as­sis­tance of air sur­veil­lance via three drones con­trolled by Air Sup­port Unit.

The five sus­pects who are be­tween the ages of 22-30 were held in a small wood­en house. Po­lice said they are to be ques­tioned in con­nec­tion with Tues­day's dri­ve-by shoot­ing in Mar­aval where Shaquille "Pa­pa" Eu­gene was killed.