At least 15 mem­bers of three ma­jor gangs re­mained in po­lice cus­tody up to last evening, af­ter a se­ries of raids in and around Port-of-Spain.

Po­lice sources said the raids, de­scribed as a “gang sweep”, were done in re­sponse to sev­er­al shoot­ings and mur­ders in Bel­mont and St Ann’s with­in the last sev­er­al days.

Po­lice said the ex­er­cis­es be­gan just af­ter 12 am on Thurs­day, as of­fi­cers de­scend­ed on sev­er­al parts of east Port-of-Spain, Laven­tille, Beetham and Sea Lots, round­ing up the sus­pects.

The sus­pects, in­clud­ing a man be­lieved to be the leader of the Sixx gang, re­mained at po­lice sta­tions across Trinidad.

Those ar­rest­ed, sources said, are sus­pects in sev­er­al mur­ders, shoot­ings and rob­beries and are ex­pect­ed to be placed on iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rade.

Po­lice sources were un­able to con­firm a fi­nal fig­ure of the num­ber of peo­ple held, as the search­es and ar­rest of fur­ther sus­pects con­tin­ued late in­to yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

The team of of­fi­cers in­volved in the ex­er­cis­es in­clud­ed those from the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion; Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion, the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF), the Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB), the Crim­i­nal Gang and In­tel­li­gence Unit and mem­bers of the T&T Reg­i­ment.

The ex­er­cise was sanc­tioned by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher and led by DCP In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions Curt Si­mon, ACP Crime Kent Ghisyawan and ACP Tac­ti­cal Sup­port Kelvern Thomp­son.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on the scope of the ex­er­cis­es yes­ter­day, a se­nior of­fi­cer said the ar­rests were made on the ba­sis of in­tel­li­gence gath­ered sev­er­al months ear­li­er, but not­ed that the re­cent uptick in mur­ders in the Port-of-Spain di­vi­sion had prompt­ed the po­lice to re­spond more ur­gent­ly with the wide­spread ar­rests.

“This is some­thing that would have been in works for quite some time but it takes time to gath­er in­tel­li­gence and in­for­ma­tion. How­ev­er, the re­cent vi­o­lence seen would have caused us to has­ten a re­sponse,” the of­fi­cer said.

“We are do­ing some­thing to stop this blood­shed and it is in­tend­ed to be a mes­sage to the gangs that they are not in con­trol. We, the po­lice, are still very much in con­trol.”

The of­fi­cer said the po­lice were pre­pared to con­tin­ue the ex­er­cis­es for “as long as pos­si­ble”, as their pres­ence is ex­pect­ed to in­crease in­to the Christ­mas and Car­ni­val sea­sons.

Al­so ap­proached for a com­ment at a grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny for the St James Po­lice Youth Club’s En­vi­ron­Men­tor360 Mentees pro­gramme at the US Em­bassy’s com­pound at Bri­ar Place, Sweet Bri­ar Road, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, CoP Hare­wood-Christo­pher ac­knowl­edged that the raids had oc­cured, say­ing their suc­cess was “plen­ty good news.” She al­so promised that of­fi­cers would con­tin­ue sim­i­lar ex­er­cis­es to root out the crim­i­nals.

The vi­o­lence in the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion is be­lieved to have been part of on­go­ing gang war­fare af­ter 33-year-old mur­der ac­cused Nester “Pa­pi” Sam­my was gunned down in the park­ing lot of Su­per­pharm, Diego Mar­tin, on Oc­to­ber 29.

That same night, Bran­don Forde, Chivon Clarke, Bri­an Pad­more and Ker­ron Moore were gunned down at the cor­ner of Smart Place and Bel­mont Cir­cu­lar Road.

Po­lice be­lieve the feud fur­ther es­ca­lat­ed with the mur­der of 36-year-old Dar­ryl “Gag­ga” Bou­caud at Symond Val­ley Road, St Ann’s, on No­vem­ber 8.

Kevon Moses, 28, was ar­rest­ed in re­la­tion to Bou­caud’s mur­der but lat­er re­leased as in­ves­ti­ga­tors did not have suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to keep him in cus­tody. How­ev­er, Moses was gunned down as he left the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion on Mon­day af­ter­noon.

On Tues­day night, Kevin Granger was shot and killed dur­ing a dri­ve-by along the St Fran­cois Val­ley Road in Bel­mont.

(With re­port­ing by Akash Sama­roo)