An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Three for­eign­ers were ar­rest­ed af­ter po­lice seized ap­prox­i­mate­ly 416.5 kilo­grammes of co­caine, worth an es­ti­mat­ed $193.5 mil­lion, con­cealed in­side four back­hoe tyres at a Long­denville busi­ness­place.

The seizure, de­scribed by se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials as a ma­jor blow to the il­le­gal drug trade, formed part of con­tin­u­ing ef­forts by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to dis­man­tle the do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tion­al drug trade. The 24-hour raid, which be­gan on Wednes­day and end­ed yes­ter­day, re­sult­ed in the ar­rest of a 42-year-old busi­ness­man from the British Vir­gin Is­lands and two Saint Lu­cian na­tion­als, aged 38 and 37.

In a brief state­ment yes­ter­day, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Crim­i­nal Di­vi­sion, Ker­win Fran­cis, said, “This in­ves­ti­ga­tion is not an end, and through the work of our col­lab­o­ra­tion with re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners, there will be fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions to de­ter­mine what oth­er transna­tion­al el­e­ments may have been in­volved in the seizure.”

The raid was con­duct­ed by Fran­cis along with act­ing ASP St Clair.

Act­ing on in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ing to the sus­pect­ed con­ceal­ment of il­le­gal firearms and nar­cotics at the premis­es along Pokhor Road, Long­denville, of­fi­cers ex­er­cised their au­thor­i­ty un­der Sec­tion 12 of the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions 2026 and con­duct­ed a care­ful and sys­tem­at­ic search of the res­i­dence, ware­house and sur­round­ing com­pound for firearms, nar­cotics and oth­er pro­hib­it­ed items.

Dur­ing the search, of­fi­cers ob­served six large back­hoe tyres mount­ed on rims in­side the ware­house. A clos­er ex­am­i­na­tion re­vealed rec­tan­gu­lar pack­ages con­cealed with­in four of the tyres.

In to­tal, 420 pack­ages weigh­ing 416.5 ki­los were dis­cov­ered.

PCs Naipaul and Frankbull, of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit, processed the lo­ca­tion with as­sis­tance from Cus­toms and Ex­cise of­fi­cers Ram­saran, De Leon and James.

The seized items were sub­se­quent­ly con­veyed to the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit in Port-of-Spain, while the three de­tained per­sons were tak­en to the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion pend­ing fur­ther en­quiries.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.