Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Of­fi­cers of the US-based Al­co­hol To­bac­co and Firearms (ATF) Bu­reau are as­sist­ing lo­cal po­lice in trac­ing the ori­gin of sev­er­al high-pow­ered ri­fles, ma­chine guns and am­mu­ni­tion that were seized in a forest­ed part of San­ta Cruz on Wednes­day af­ter­noon.

The 35 weapons were seized as part of an op­er­a­tion led by of­fi­cers of the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF) off Can­gre­hal Road.

Po­lice said the of­fi­cers found the cache of weapons in a shed. Two AK47 ri­fles, two Dra­co ri­fles, an M16 ri­fle, two UZI ma­chine guns, a Beretta ma­chine gun, a Ruger .30 cal­i­bre ri­fle and a Ruger Pre­ci­sion .50 cal­i­bre ri­fle were among the guns seized.

A to­tal of 1,152 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, in­clud­ing 45mm, 50-cal­i­bre rounds, 12-gauge shot­gun car­tridges, 9mm, 7.62 and 6.5 cal­i­bre ar­mour pierc­ing rounds were al­so found.

Al­so con­fis­cat­ed were a quan­ti­ty of gun­pow­der and C4 ex­plo­sives with charg­ers and det­o­na­tors.

Min­utes af­ter the weapons were seized, they were dis­played dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain.

Po­lice sources told Guardian Me­dia that lat­er Wednes­day, ATF of­fi­cers vis­it­ed the build­ing and as­sist­ed po­lice in de­ter­min­ing the ori­gin of the guns.

Of­fi­cers from the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) and Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU) are al­so in­volved in this en­quiry.

One of­fi­cer said the guns were at a “se­cure lo­ca­tion” but not­ed that tests will be per­formed on the weapons to de­ter­mine who han­dled them and if they were in­volved in any re­cent crimes.

He said while the se­r­i­al num­bers could be filed off to pre­vent trac­ing, the tech­nol­o­gy avail­able could be used to “raise” the num­bers that were on the guns.

The guns will be analysed at ei­ther the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, or the Spe­cial Ev­i­dence Re­cov­ery Unit (SERU) in Cu­mu­to.

Po­lice sources said the guns be­longed to a crim­i­nal gang and they are con­tin­u­ing en­quiries to find those re­spon­si­ble.

The find was sim­i­lar to one in June 2021, where of­fi­cers of the now-dis­band­ed Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) re­ceived in­for­ma­tion and found an AR15 as­sault ri­fle, two pis­tols, a re­volver and a quan­ti­ty of C4 plas­tic ex­plo­sives with det­o­na­tors, in a par­cel of land out­side the Arou­ca Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP).

Of­fi­cers be­lieved then that the weapons and ex­plo­sives were to be used in a plot by crim­i­nals to es­cape from the prison.