Chester Sam­bra­no

An­tho­ny Smith, a Tu­na­puna busi­ness­man, who was the first per­son to be con­vict­ed as a hu­man traf­fick­er in Trinidad and To­ba­go, was on Sun­day evening cap­tured by a team of po­lice of­fi­cers.

Smith had ab­scond­ed from his court tri­al last Sep­tem­ber and has since been on the run from law en­force­ment though hav­ing been con­vict­ed for sev­er­al of­fences be­tween 2014 and 2015.

In a state­ment the TTPS said a fe­male ap­pren­tice, 20, of Kel­ly Vil­lage, who po­lice be­lieve was aid­ing and abet­ting the fugi­tive has al­so been ar­rest­ed in the po­lice op­er­a­tion and is cur­rent­ly as­sist­ing a team of de­tec­tives with on­go­ing en­quiries.

The TTPS said at 6 pm on Feb­ru­ary 11, of­fi­cers of the North-Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Gang and In­tel­li­gence Unit (NCDG­IU) along with the North-Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Task Force (NCDTF) and North Cen­tral-Com­mu­ni­ty Polic­ing Of­fi­cers con­tin­ued sur­veil­lance at a lo­ca­tion in Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni, where a com­pan­ion of Smith was ob­served.

NCDG­IU, NCDTF and NCD Com­mu­ni­ty Po­lice of­fi­cers sub­se­quent­ly moved in and cap­tured and ar­rest­ed An­tho­ny Smith and his com­pan­ion. Smith, 38, was first ar­rest­ed and charged on Jan­u­ary 5, 2016, for re­cruit­ing a child for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing; 17 charges of sex­u­al­ly pen­e­trat­ing a child; five charges of child pros­ti­tu­tion and three charges of as­sault.

The of­fences oc­curred dur­ing the pe­ri­od De­cem­ber 2014 to Ju­ly 2015.

On April 28, the mat­ter was set for tri­al on Sep­tem­ber 18, 2023.

The tri­al com­menced on that date and af­ter two days of ev­i­dence, the ac­cused ab­scond­ed.

The tri­al con­tin­ued in the ab­sence of the ac­cused and on No­vem­ber 2nd, 2023, a ju­ry found him guilty on all five counts of Traf­fick­ing of a Child. He was sen­tenced to 15 years on each count with the sen­tences to run con­cur­rent­ly and to be­gin on his ar­rest.

The ex­er­cise was spear­head­ed by ACP Subero, Snr Supt Smith, Supt Nor­butt, co­or­di­nat­ed by ASP Ramharack, In­sp Greene, and su­per­vised by Sgts (Ag.) Dar­d­aine, Pam­phill, Cpls Greenidge, Sci­pio, and Tan­nis.