Chester Sam­bra­no

News­gath­er­ing Ed­i­tor

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

Tu­na­puna busi­ness­man An­tho­ny Smith, who es­caped cus­tody be­fore he be­came the first per­son to be con­vict­ed as a hu­man traf­fick­er in Trinidad and To­ba­go, was fi­nal­ly cap­tured by a team of po­lice of­fi­cers on Sun­day evening.

Smith had ab­scond­ed from his court tri­al last Sep­tem­ber and had been on the run from law en­force­ment af­ter be­ing con­vict­ed for sev­er­al of­fences be­tween 2014 and 2015.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) said a fe­male ap­pren­tice, 20, of Kel­ly Vil­lage, who po­lice be­lieve was help­ing An­tho­ny stay un­de­tect­ed from law en­force­ment of­fi­cers, was al­so ar­rest­ed in the po­lice op­er­a­tion and is cur­rent­ly as­sist­ing a team of de­tec­tives with on­go­ing en­quiries.

The TTPS said at 6 pm on Sun­day, of­fi­cers from the North-Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Gang and In­tel­li­gence Unit (NCDG­IU), along with the North-Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Task Force (NCDTF) and North Cen­tral-Com­mu­ni­ty Polic­ing Of­fi­cers, con­tin­ued sur­veil­lance at a lo­ca­tion in Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni, where a com­pan­ion of Smith was ob­served.

NCDG­IU, NCDTF and NCD Com­mu­ni­ty Po­lice of­fi­cers sub­se­quent­ly moved in and cap­tured and ar­rest­ed Smith and his com­pan­ion.

Smith, 38, was first ar­rest­ed and charged on Jan­u­ary 5, 2016, for re­cruit­ing a child for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing; 17 charges of sex­u­al­ly pen­e­trat­ing a child; five charges of child pros­ti­tu­tion and three charges of as­sault.

The of­fences oc­curred dur­ing the pe­ri­od De­cem­ber 2014 to Ju­ly 2015. On April 28, the mat­ter was set for tri­al on Sep­tem­ber 18, 2023. The tri­al com­menced on that date and af­ter two days of ev­i­dence, Smith ab­scond­ed af­ter free­ing him­self from an elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing de­vice.

The tri­al con­tin­ued in his ab­sence and on No­vem­ber 2, 2023, a ju­ry found Smith guilty on all five counts of traf­fick­ing of a child. He was sen­tenced to 15 years on each count, with the sen­tences to run con­cur­rent­ly and to be­gin on his ar­rest.

The ex­er­cise was spear­head­ed by ACP Subero, Snr Supt Smith, Supt Nor­butt, co­or­di­nat­ed by ASP Ramharack, In­sp Greene, and su­per­vised by Sgts (Ag) Dar­d­aine, Pam­phill, Cpls Greenidge, Sci­pio and Tan­nis.