Mark Bas­sant

Eight peo­ple were de­tained yes­ter­day af­ter po­lice swooped down on an area in Las Lo­mas in Cen­tral Trinidad where al­leged il­le­gal quar­ry­ing was tak­ing place.

A team of of­fi­cers from the North­ern Di­vi­sion Ma­jor Op­er­a­tions Unit re­ceived in­for­ma­tion about the il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ty af­ter mak­ing con­tact with the of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands, who con­firmed the ac­tiv­i­ty was tak­ing place on pri­vate lands af­ter check­ing the land bound­aries.

The po­lice, ac­com­pa­nied by of­fi­cials from the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands, went to the area at Savary Road, Las Lo­mas Num­ber 1 short­ly af­ter 8 am. Up­on ar­rival, po­lice found an ex­ca­va­tor at work clear­ing a por­tion of the land and five dump trucks with what ap­peared to be ag­gre­gate.

Of­fi­cials sub­se­quent­ly dis­cov­ered that the men on site did not have a li­cense to quar­ry and they were lat­er de­tained for ques­tion­ing.

A group of men stand outside a makeshift office after they were arrested by police at a suspected illegal quarrying site at Las Lomas Number 1 yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

In­ves­ti­ga­tors told Guardian Me­dia that the men can be pos­si­bly charged for il­le­gal min­ing and the own­er of the pri­vate land could al­so be held cul­pa­ble. Be­cause the il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty was not be­ing car­ried out on State lands, po­lice said they could not seize the equip­ment.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors told Guardian Me­dia that vil­lagers in the area had no­ticed in­ten­si­fied ac­tiv­i­ty in the area over the last two weeks, with trucks go­ing in and out of the sev­en-acre prop­er­ty. Sources al­so be­lieve that this il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ty has al­so been hap­pen­ing un­der the pro­tec­tion of law en­force­ment of­fi­cers.

Solar panel-powered cameras are seen strategically installed on a mango tree at the entrance to the suspected illegal quarry.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

“The ac­tiv­i­ty at this quar­ry alone could gen­er­ate over $20 mil­lion,” a se­nior po­lice source told Guardian Me­dia.

The Min­istry of En­er­gy will al­so be con­duct­ing in­quiries in­to the mat­ter with the as­sis­tance of the po­lice.

PC Sandy of the North­ern Di­vi­sion is spear­head­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.