Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic na­tion­al Son­nil Gabriel De­r­afil, 29, was charged for pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na for traf­fick­ing by mem­bers of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion (NED) Gang/In­tel­li­gence Unit.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, on March 25th, of­fi­cers un­der the su­per­vi­sion of Sgt Mitchell, went to Erin Road, Siparia, where they in­ter­cept­ed a white Nis­san pan­el van. Up­on see­ing the of­fi­cers, the two oc­cu­pants left the ve­hi­cle and ran. Of­fi­cers caught the sus­pects a short dis­tance away.

A search of the pan­el van re­vealed a quan­ti­ty of plas­tic-wrapped items. Po­lice found the items to be mar­i­jua­na amount­ing to 106.24 kilo­grammes with an es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of $2,860,000. The men were ar­rest­ed by PC Bleas­dell and con­veyed to the Mor­vant Po­lice sta­tion along with the mar­i­jua­na.

De­r­afil was sub­se­quent­ly charged. The ac­cused is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear vir­tu­al­ly be­fore the Siparia Mag­is­trate Court to­mor­row, Wednes­day, April 28th, 2021. The ex­er­cise which was a part of Op­er­a­tion Strike Back was spear­head­ed by ACP Andy Bel­fon, Snr Win­ston Supt Ma­haraj, Supt Roger Alexan­der, Supt Ramjohn, Asp Be­har­ry and co­or­di­nat­ed by In­sp Bharath. En­quiries are con­tin­u­ing.