Camille Clarke

Mem­bers of the Ja­maican Po­lice Ser­vice and Cus­toms and Ex­cise have ar­rived in T&T to as­sist lo­cal in­ves­ti­ga­tors with on go­ing drug in­ves­ti­ga­tions. Dur­ing the past few months, sev­er­al peo­ple were ar­rest­ed and charged with pos­ses­sion of high grade mar­i­jua­na from Ja­maica. Pub­lic re­la­tions di­rec­tor of the Po­lice Ser­vice, Sharon Lee As­sang, said yes­ter­day on go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions brought the of­fi­cers to T&T. Lee As­sang made the dis­clo­sure dur­ing yes­ter­day's dai­ly me­dia press con­fer­ence at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain. She said: "In­ves­ti­ga­tions are pro­ceed­ing at pace. They are work­ing with our coun­ter­parts here: Or­gan­ised Crime, Firearms and Nar­cotics Bu­reau and Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sions.

"We ex­pect an ar­rest is im­mi­nent, The in­ves­ti­ga­tions brought of­fi­cials from Ja­maica here."

Last week Wednes­day, two Ja­maican na­tion­als were ar­rest­ed at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port af­ter they were al­leged to be in the pos­ses­sion of a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na with a street val­ue of close to $300,000. On Sep­tem­ber 15, $34 mil­lion worth of high grade mar­i­jua­na was seized at the Port of Point Lisas. Po­lice have since ques­tioned a cen­tral busi­ness­man in con­nec­tion with that drug haul and are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions. That mar­i­jua­na was found in 38 bags hid­den among frozen chick­en parts. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the con­tain­er passed through a Ja­maican port. Lee As­sang al­so spoke on the num­ber of peo­ple ar­rest­ed for drunk­en dri­ving and ac­ci­dents."The road fa­tal­i­ty fig­ure is al­most neck-and-neck with the mur­der toll. This can be pre­vent­ed. If you must drink don't dri­ve," she said.

A to­tal of 54 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed in the past 24 hours

-Gang-re­lat­ed-0;

-homi­cide-0;

-firearms-0;

-drugs- 7;

-breach­ing the cur­few-3;

-oth­er crimes-1;

-se­ri­ous crimes-8;

-out­stand­ing war­rants-27;

-in­quiries-6; and

-fixed penal­ties-2

Sum­ma­ry of ar­rests from Au­gust 21:

-To­tal ar­rests-3,601

-gang-re­lat­ed-449;

-drugs-618;

-oth­er crimes-131;

-se­ri­ous crimes-671;

-homi­cides-56;

-breach­ing the cur­few-170;

-in­quiries-343;

-traf­fic-641;

-am­mu­ni­tion-12,327;

-mag­a­zines-28;

-firearms-111; and

-out­stand­ing war­rants-823.