The Po­lice Ser­vice said it con­tin­ues to work on the dis­man­tling of hu­man traf­fick­ing and gangs fol­low­ing the re­cent ar­rests and charges of peo­ple un­der the An­ti-Gang Leg­is­la­tion.

A TTPS re­lease said af­ter in­ves­ti­ga­tions were con­duct­ed, dis­cus­sions were held with the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard SC and di­rec­tions were giv­en to charge two Veneze­lans.

It said Yil­frenth Al­i­son Ramirez Di­az, al­so known as Mor­pheo, has been charged un­der the An­ti-Gang Act with know­ing­ly sup­port­ing a gang leader and Pe­dro David Her­nan­dez Patete was charged with:

• Be­ing a gang leader

• Re­ceiv­ing and trans­port­ing a Venezue­lan fe­male for the pur­pose of ex­ploita­tion and with the ex­ploita­tion of the pros­ti­tu­tion of said fe­male

• Procu­ra­tion for pros­ti­tu­tion

• Har­bour­ing a Venezue­lan fe­male for the pur­pose of sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion

• Re­ceiv­ing a fi­nan­cial ben­e­fit know­ing that it re­sult­ed from traf­fick­ing in per­sons

Both were charged on Sep­tem­ber 29 at the Max­i­mum-Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, Gold­en Grove, Arou­ca by act­ing Sgt Ram­sar­ran of the Counter-Traf­fick­ing Unit.

The mat­ters were heard on Thurs­day, Sep­tem­ber 30 at the Port-of-Spain, Mag­is­trates’ Court be­fore Mag­is­trate Gafoor and were then trans­ferred to the Eighth Court.

The ac­cused were re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody and the mat­ters were ad­journed to the Oc­to­ber 7 and 28, re­spec­tive­ly.

The re­lease said these in­ves­ti­ga­tions were co­or­di­nat­ed un­der the um­brel­la of the Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau and led by Se­nior Supt Christo­pher Pa­ponette in con­junc­tion with Alana Wheel­er, Di­rec­tor of the Counter-Traf­fick­ing Unit and head­ed by Supt Michael Veronique with ad­vice from SIU Le­gal of­fi­cer Za­heer Ali.