Of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) and the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Team raid­ed a Fair­ways, Mar­aval home ear­ly Fri­day morn­ing and re-ar­rest­ed a well-known busi­ness­man who had been held in con­nec­tion to a huge cache of firearms and drugs in Cen­tral Trinidad in No­vem­ber last year but was lat­er re­leased.

Sources told Guardian Me­dia that of­fi­cers ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant and en­tered the 38-year-old man’s Sandy Way, Fair­ways home close to 5.30 am. Up to last night, the sus­pect was be­ing in­ter­viewed by po­lice.

The man, who owns two freight com­pa­nies and a ves­sel, was tak­en in­to cus­tody and is ex­pect­ed to be charged with drug traf­fick­ing, pos­ses­sion of firearms and mon­ey laun­der­ing stem­ming from the in­ci­dent last year af­ter in­struc­tions were hand­ed down by the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

Se­nior po­lice sources say the man’s re-ar­rest came af­ter months of fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions and in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing and should be charged over the com­ing days.

Dur­ing the ex­er­cise, SORT al­so con­duct­ed two si­mul­ta­ne­ous raids at homes in Cen­tral and East Trinidad where two oth­er men were al­so held for ques­tion­ing and were said to be co-op­er­at­ing with the po­lice.

On No­vem­ber 8 last year, the busi­ness­man and an­oth­er man were held at an apart­ment at Macaya Trace, along Munroe Road in Cunu­pia.

That ex­er­cise, which was spear­head­ed by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith and in­clud­ed SORT, the Ca­nine Unit and the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA), yield­ed sev­er­al mil­i­tary type weapons - in­clud­ing AR-15s, Draci AK-47s and MAC 11s.

Po­lice al­so found and seized am­mu­ni­tion/mag­a­zines and over 100 pack­ets of com­pressed mar­i­jua­na val­ued in ex­cess of $1 mil­li­on and im­pound­ed a car. The weapons were said to be brand new and be­lieved to have been smug­gled in­to the coun­try from Venezuela via the Ca­roni Riv­er. They can fetch up to be­tween $35,000 and $50,000 on the streets.

Ac­cord­ing to a T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) re­lease then, the of­fi­cers had act­ed on in­tel­li­gence gath­ered for over 18 months. The T&T Guardian was told that af­ter gath­er­ing ini­tial in­tel­li­gence in the case, of­fi­cers searched a house at War­ren Road, just off Munroe Road, three months pri­or to that find. CoP Grif­fith had al­so said then that the weapons seized were “in­di­ca­tive of the type of fire­pow­er which cri­mi­nals now have at their dis­pos­al in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”