SHANE SU­PERVILLE

Se­nior Re­porter

Shane Su­perville

Two men who were kid­napped were found un­harmed ear­li­er to­day af­ter es­cap­ing their cap­tors in Va­len­cia.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) con­firmed that 18-year-old Ryan Singh and 21-year-old Keer­an Latch­man made their way to the Va­len­cia Po­lice Post just af­ter 11 am, where they are as­sist­ing of­fi­cers with in­quiries.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Singh’s Boys Lane, D’Abadie home on Wednes­day, rel­a­tives con­firmed he had been re­leased.

One rel­a­tive said she had been pray­ing every night since his dis­ap­pear­ance.

“It’s a bless­ing to hear he was re­leased. I don’t know what is go­ing on in this coun­try where peo­ple just get­ting snatched like this.”

Both men were last seen on Mon­day morn­ing, trav­el­ling in a white van car­ry­ing scaf­fold­ing equip­ment. A ran­som de­mand of $1.2 mil­lion was re­port­ed­ly made for their re­lease.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTPS, Singh and Latch­man were ab­duct­ed on Ju­ly 21 while en route to make a de­liv­ery in Va­len­cia. Their ve­hi­cle was lat­er found aban­doned in Arou­ca, prompt­ing an im­me­di­ate re­sponse from law en­force­ment.

Of­fi­cers, act­ing on in­tel­li­gence, de­tained two in­di­vid­u­als in Va­len­cia in con­nec­tion with the ab­duc­tion. Po­lice said the sus­pects’ as­so­ciates, who had been guard­ing the hostages, fled the camp af­ter learn­ing of the ar­rests and the po­lice pres­ence in the area.

The men seized the op­por­tu­ni­ty to flee and ran to the Va­len­cia Po­lice Sta­tion. They will be med­ical­ly ex­am­ined be­fore be­ing re­unit­ed with their fam­i­lies.

The op­er­a­tion was co­or­di­nat­ed by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Suzette Mar­tin, and As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er Richard Smith, with su­per­vi­sion by Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Win­ston Ma­haraj and Su­per­in­ten­dent An­der­son Pa­ri­man.

Gue­var­ro said, “The swift re­sponse and in­ter-agency co­or­di­na­tion un­der­score our com­mit­ment to pro­tect­ing cit­i­zens and dis­man­tling crim­i­nal net­works. I com­mend the of­fi­cers for their dis­ci­plined ap­proach and ex­press re­lief at the safe re­turn of the vic­tims.”

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.