Four Trinida­di­ans were ar­rest­ed and charged in Pe­tit Bor­del, St. Vin­cent ear­li­er this month.

The men were charged on Oc­to­ber 3 ,with pos­ses­sion, traf­fick­ing, and con­spir­a­cy to traf­fic 240lbs of mar­i­jua­na.

They ap­peared be­fore the Se­ri­ous Of­fences Court in Kingstown on Mon­day where they plead­ed “guilty with an ex­pla­na­tion” to the charges.

The Trinida­di­ans are Jay­ron Abra­ham, aka Fat­boy, 21; Dami­an Bap­tiste, aka Tall Boy, 29; Shaqkeim Bo­lah, aka Myng, 21; and Isa­iah Phillips, aka Izee, 23. They were joined by Vin­cent­ian Tevin Matthews, who was joint­ly charged with con­spir­ing to traf­fic the drug be­tween Feb. 1 and May 4 in Pe­tit Bor­del.

Ac­cord­ing to iWit­ness News out of St. Vin­cent, dur­ing the court pro­ceed­ings, the pros­e­cu­tor, In­spec­tor Ren­rick Cato, re­quest­ed the court to en­ter not guilty pleas for the Trinida­di­ans, giv­en their plea. The case has been ad­journed to Wednes­day.

iWit­ness news al­so re­ports ten­sions es­ca­lat­ed in Pe­tit Bor­del fol­low­ing the ar­rests. Res­i­dents linked the Trinida­di­ans to two re­cent shoot­ing deaths in the com­mu­ni­ty.

A woman re­port­ed­ly hurled a bot­tle at them while they were in po­lice cus­tody, al­leg­ing that one of the men had threat­ened her with a gun sign.

Fol­low­ing the court ap­pear­ance, the mag­is­trate or­dered the Trinida­di­ans to be re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody un­til the next hear­ing. Matthews was grant­ed bail set at EC$25,000, with con­di­tions in­clud­ing the sur­ren­der of his pass­port and week­ly re­port­ing to the Chateaube­lair Po­lice Sta­tion.