Mark Bas­sant

Two sol­diers from the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force were ar­rest­ed on Tues­day morn­ing af­ter they al­leged­ly at­tempt­ed to smug­gle in a large quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na and sev­er­al oth­er con­tra­band items in­to the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) in Arou­ca.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors told Guardian Me­dia that the close to 11 am a war­rant of­fi­cer, class 2, at­tached to the Spe­cial Forces and an­oth­er war­rant of­fi­cer class 2, at­tached to Tetron Bar­racks went to vis­it three sol­diers present­ly in­car­cer­at­ed and al­leged­ly col­lect­ed three bags of food items from their rel­a­tives.

When a team of prison of­fi­cers searched bags they un­cov­ered 1534 kilo­grams of com­pressed mar­i­jua­na, 290 packs of cig­a­rettes, 10 lighters, three elec­tric pock­et scales, one cell phone charg­er, four packs of ra­zor blades, one cell­phone hold­er, wrap­ping pa­per, and oth­er food­stuff items.

A par­ty of of­fi­cers led by Acp Bel­fon, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Ramdeen, Supt Pow­der, Ed­wards, ASP Cog­gins, and sev­er­al of­fi­cers of the Arou­ca CID vis­it­ed the MSP.

The sol­diers were lat­er tak­en in­to cus­tody and ques­tioned. They are fac­ing charges of smug­gling con­tra­band in­to the prison.