Po­lice have seized over $136 mil­lion worth of mar­i­jua­na in Mara­cas.

A state­ment by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) said that a

spe­cial­ist unit of the TTPS part­nered with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard (TTCG) and of­fi­cers of the North­ern Di­vi­sion, to con­duct an in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tion, which has re­sult­ed in the seizure.

The drugs were dis­cov­ered along a se­clud­ed in­let on the Mara­cas coast. Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin stat­ed, “This sig­nif­i­cant drug seizure un­der­scores the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to pro­tect­ing our na­tion from the threats posed by transna­tion­al crim­i­nal net­works. We re­main vig­i­lant in our ef­forts to dis­rupt the il­le­gal drug trade and will con­tin­ue to lever­age in­tel­li­gence and work close­ly with our lo­cal, re­gion­al, and in­ter­na­tion­al law en­force­ment part­ners.”

The op­er­a­tion was launched af­ter the spe­cial­ist unit re­ceived in­for­ma­tion ear­ly this morn­ing from a con­fi­den­tial source, which in­di­cat­ed that a known Drug Traf­fick­ing Net­work (DTN) had re­cent­ly im­port­ed a sub­stan­tial con­sign­ment of nar­cotics from South Amer­i­ca.

The drugs were re­port­ed­ly stashed in a re­mote, sea-ac­ces­si­ble lo­ca­tion in the Mara­cas area, pend­ing fur­ther trans­ship­ment to oth­er re­gion­al ter­ri­to­ries.

The spe­cial­ist unit quick­ly ini­ti­at­ed an in­tel­li­gence de­vel­op­ment process, to quick­ly pin­point the sus­pect­ed stash site.

De­spite rough sea con­di­tions, the TTPS said that the TTCG skill­ful­ly nav­i­gat­ed ma­rine as­sets to the iso­lat­ed in­let, where the joint team con­duct­ed a thor­ough search.

The search led to the dis­cov­ery of a large stash of nar­cotics con­cealed with­in dense for­est cov­er, rest­ing on a bank area.

The team seized 45 bales con­tain­ing Colom­bian “Creepy” Cannabis, con­sist­ing of 2250 pack­ets with a com­bined weight of 1242.9 kilo­grams, and an es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of TT$136,404,546.

Each bale was iden­ti­cal­ly packed with 50 pack­ets.

The team se­cured the il­le­gal nar­cotics which was trans­port­ed to Staubles Bay, Ch­aguara­mas, with the sup­port of TTCG ma­rine as­sets.

DCP, In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Suzette Mar­tin stat­ed, “The suc­cess of this op­er­a­tion is a tes­ta­ment to the strength and ef­fec­tive­ness of the in­tel­li­gence-gath­er­ing sys­tems with­in the TTPS. In­tel­li­gence-led polic­ing con­tin­ues to be a cor­ner­stone of our strate­gic ap­proach to tack­ling or­ga­nized crime and nar­cotics traf­fick­ing. The TTPS re­mains com­mit­ted to re­fin­ing and ex­pand­ing our in­tel­li­gence ca­pa­bil­i­ties, and to work­ing hand-in-hand with our re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al law en­force­ment part­ners to pro­tect the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Act­ing DCP, Op­er­a­tions, Curt Si­mon al­so com­ment­ed on the seizure stat­ing, “This op­er­a­tion ex­em­pli­fies the pre­ci­sion, co­or­di­na­tion, and dis­ci­pline of our front­line units. It was a high-stakes, in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven mis­sion ex­e­cut­ed with pro­fes­sion­al­ism and care, and I com­mend all of­fi­cers in­volved for their un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to du­ty. Op­er­a­tional suc­cess of this mag­ni­tude doesn’t hap­pen by chance, it is the re­sult of metic­u­lous plan­ning, seam­less in­ter-agency col­lab­o­ra­tion, and a deep com­mit­ment to the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”