Six men linked to a high-pro­file in­mate have been ar­rest­ed and their al­leged sus­pect­ed mur­der plot foiled.

They are cur­rent­ly be­ing held at var­i­ous po­lice sta­tions across the North­ern Di­vi­sion up to press time on Thurs­day.

Ac­cord­ing to ini­tial in­for­ma­tion reach­ing the Guardian Me­dia they were re­port­ed­ly wait­ing to kill an in­mate who was be­ing re­leased out­side the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison.

How­ev­er, a se­nior prison of­fi­cer source said "it was not an in­mate" when asked if it was, in fact, a prison of­fi­cer he replied "no".

The in­ci­dent oc­curred at about 3 pm when po­lice and prison of­fi­cers re­ceived in­tel­li­gence that the men were in three cars out­side the prison grounds.

The of­fi­cers moved in on them and ar­rest­ed them. The ve­hi­cles were al­so im­pound­ed.

The Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young is giv­ing full as­sur­ance that the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of prison of­fi­cers re­main a top pri­or­i­ty for the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

All Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty law en­force­ment and in­tel­li­gence agen­cies are said to be on high alert and are work­ing co­he­sive­ly to sup­port the safe­ty of prison of­fi­cers.

Ear­li­er this month, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, in a re­lease, strong­ly de­nounced the re­cent cir­cu­la­tion of threat­en­ing mes­sages be­ing made against prison of­fi­cers.

Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith, right, and his officers.

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On Au­gust 13, Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons, Ger­ard Wil­son ad­vised all of­fi­cers of the T&T Prison Ser­vice to ex­er­cise ex­treme cau­tion and vig­i­lance es­pe­cial­ly when off-du­ty.

The ad­vi­so­ry came af­ter sev­er­al threats be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing via the What­sApp medi­um, in­di­cat­ing a plot to 'kill any two of­fi­cers'.

The ad­vi­so­ry al­so came hours af­ter the ex-wife of a prison of­fi­cer, Sher­ry Ann Wat­son, 51, was killed sec­onds af­ter she ar­rived at her home in Mal­abar on Au­gust 12.

Ac­cord­ing to Wil­son, all se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies are on high alert and di­rec­tives are in place, es­pe­cial­ly for of­fi­cers who live in what are deemed 'high risk' ar­eas.

Short­ly be­fore 6 pm Wat­son was about to en­ter her house at Al­bert Mark Street, Phase 4 when two gun­men am­bushed her and opened fire. She died on the scene.

On May 8, in a sim­i­lar in­ci­dent, 13 peo­ple from a well-known gang in the North­ern Di­vi­sion were found lurk­ing around the Tu­na­puna Mag­is­trates’ Court. They were ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with a plot to mur­der a state wit­ness as he ex­it­ed the court.

The state wit­ness, 38, had giv­en ev­i­dence in an at­tempt­ed mur­der case that same day.

The sus­pects who were ar­rest­ed were be­tween the ages of 20 to 35.

The four ve­hi­cles used by the sus­pects – a Ti­i­da, an AD wag­on, an Elantra and H100, which were said to parked in the vicin­i­ty of the court have al­so been seized and sent for foren­sic analy­sis.