Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice raid­ed a Chi­nese busi­ness com­plex in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day morn­ing, ar­rest­ed the own­er and de­tained ap­prox­i­mate­ly 100 for­eign na­tion­als.

Around 5 am, of­fi­cers from an elite se­cu­ri­ty unit swooped down on the com­plex at Union Hall where V’s Mem­bers Club, a su­per­mar­ket, ho­tel and apart­ment com­plex are lo­cat­ed. They de­tained sev­er­al Chi­nese and Span­ish-speak­ing na­tion­als, in­clud­ing chil­dren, who were hand­ed over to the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion to de­ter­mine their sta­tus. The own­er was ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with firearm-re­lat­ed of­fences.

Po­lice said the raid fol­lowed five years of in­tel­li­gence work based on in­for­ma­tion on al­leged il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties at the com­pound and al­leged ties to in­ter­na­tion­al Chi­nese crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions.

There were two mur­ders on the com­pound last year. Busi­ness­man Christo­pher Ra­jbal­ly, 38, was dri­ving out of the com­pound short­ly be­fore 11 pm on De­cem­ber 5 when oc­cu­pants of a white Toy­ota Aqua blocked his path and opened fire on him.

Last Ju­ly 24, Ricky Loach left the casi­no around 11 pm and en­tered his ve­hi­cle in the car park when a man walked up to him and opened fire. He died at the scene.