Po­lice have ar­rest­ed ten Venezue­lan na­tion­als who at­tempt­ed to en­ter the coun­try il­le­gal­ly, while a ri­fle and a quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion were seized dur­ing an­ti-crime op­er­a­tions in the South West­ern and Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sions on Mon­day.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, the TTPS said of­fi­cers of the South West­ern Di­vi­sion in­ter­cept­ed a ves­sel about one mile off the Erin dis­trict shore around 7 am on Mon­day. Ten Venezue­lan na­tion­als, ages 7 to 25, were de­tained, and of­fi­cials from the Im­mi­gra­tion De­part­ment and the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty were no­ti­fied.

Mean­while, in Port-of-Spain, of­fi­cers of the In­ter-Agency Task Force con­duct­ed an an­ti-crime ex­er­cise be­tween 7 am and 9 am on Mon­day, dur­ing which time they went to the Nel­son Street Pan­nings. Dur­ing a search, of­fi­cers found a ri­fle loaded with a mag­a­zine con­tain­ing 22 rounds of 5.56 am­mu­ni­tion, wrapped in plas­tic on the rooftop of the build­ing.

The ex­er­cise was led by ACP Hazel, Snr Supt Sook­er, Supt Ram­sook, and ASP Singh.