An­na-Lisa Paul

Ten fe­male Latin Amer­i­cans were on Tues­day res­cued by po­lice dur­ing a spe­cial op­er­a­tion in Mon­trose, Ch­agua­nas. There were two mi­nors among the group.

Af­ter they were res­cued, the vic­tims were tak­en from a res­i­dence at Er­ic Street West in a po­lice bus to an un­known lo­ca­tion for their safe­ty.

The op­er­a­tion was con­duct­ed from 5 am to 2 pm yes­ter­day by of­fi­cers of the Counter-Traf­fick­ing Unit, the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit and the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Task Force, along with op­er­a­tional sup­port from the Mul­ti Op­er­a­tional Po­lice Sec­tion and In­ter-Agency Task Force.

Act­ing on in­for­ma­tion, of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly went to the com­pound which hous­es a pri­vate home, sev­er­al apart­ments, a shop and a small food es­tab­lish­ment and be­gan search­ing for the vic­tims, who were al­leged­ly be­ing forced to work as pros­ti­tutes.

Dur­ing the ex­er­cise, six Trinida­di­an men, a Trinida­di­an woman; a Latin Amer­i­can man and a Ja­maican woman were al­so ar­rest­ed.

Of­fi­cers al­so seized sev­er­al items of ev­i­den­tial val­ue dur­ing the op­er­a­tion.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the area, res­i­dents were re­luc­tant to speak about the go­ings-on at the “fa­cil­i­ty.”

Sev­er­al peo­ple, how­ev­er, ex­pressed sur­prise over the ex­er­cise. They claimed that the prop­er­ty is owned by a po­lice of­fi­cer from the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion.

One said, “Since they opened in 2019, we have made nu­mer­ous re­ports to the po­lice…some­times you would see a van or two come or dri­ve past…but no­body is ever ar­rest­ed or charged with any­thing.”

One woman was seen hold­ing tight to her young chil­dren as she looked on qui­et­ly.

When Guardian Me­dia ap­proached two women who had been ques­tioned by po­lice, they de­clined to speak and in­stead be­gan to threat­en le­gal ac­tion if their pho­tographs were pub­lished.

How­ev­er, one man com­mend­ed the po­lice for their ef­forts to “clean up the neigh­bour­hood,” but said, “Just now, you go see they come right back here.”