RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

Scores of work­ers at the Bond lo­cat­ed at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, in­clud­ing Cus­toms bro­kers, are to be ques­tioned as part of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the ma­jor guns and am­mu­ni­tion dis­cov­ery last Thurs­day night.

A se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer, speak­ing un­der the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty yes­ter­day, said senders and re­cip­i­ents of il­le­gal firearms and am­mu­ni­tion were us­ing false names and ad­dress­es, mak­ing it hard to trace the per­pe­tra­tors.

“It is be­lieved the pack­ages are be­ing tak­en by work­ers from these bonds and they are the ones tak­ing it out to the re­al re­cip­i­ents. They are the ones who know who these peo­ple are and would be able to lead the po­lice to them,” the of­fi­cer said.

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse to the bust last week, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith said the seizure was “a big dent in­to the il­le­gal firearm/am­mu­ni­tion trade through le­git­i­mate ports of en­try.”

Mean­while, for­mer Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre head Garvin Heer­ah yes­ter­day said se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion now had to be made re­gard­ing all ports in T&T.

“This was at the air­port but we must be equal­ly con­cerned for the sea­ports,” Heer­ah said.

“As we have seen, this was via a le­git­i­mate im­port-ex­port trade process—the con­tain­er busi­ness. There­fore, an es­ca­lat­ed vig­i­lance should al­so be en­hanced at all ports.”

Thurs­day night’s bust net­ted 30 firearms and 762 rounds of as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion, all from the US.

Ef­forts to reach Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds were un­suc­cess­ful.