Derek Achong

An El So­cor­ro busi­ness­man was among six peo­ple ar­rest­ed by po­lice on Sun­day in con­nec­tion with drug re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty in the area. Po­lice said the 39-year-old man of Tem­ple Street, El So­cor­ro Ex­ten­sion South, was be­ing sought by po­lice and De­fence Force per­son­nel since the procla­ma­tion of the state of emer­gency on Au­gust 22. Re­ports said that around 7 pm on Sun­day, the man was ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force (NEDTF) led by Sgt Roger Alexan­der and Cpl Sunil Bharath at Mar­itime Plaza, Barataria. He was then hand­ed over to in­ves­ti­ga­tors of the Crim­i­nal In­tel­li­gence Unit (CIU) who were said to be ques­tion­ing him in con­nec­tion with gang re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty.

Of­fi­cers said that the man, whom they de­scribed as a "big fish", would then be ques­tioned by mem­bers of the Or­gan­ised Crime, Nar­cotics and Firearms Bu­reau for al­leged smug­gling of drugs and arms through the Ca­roni Riv­er that runs through El So­cor­ro Ex­ten­sion South. Crim­i­nal charges are ex­pect­ed to be laid soon.

Mean­while, the same group of of­fi­cers act­ing on an anony­mous tip-off have de­tained four Colom­bian na­tion­als who have been in the coun­try il­le­gal­ly. The men, who range in age from 30 to 37, were found at an apart­ment at Up­per Sixth Av­enue, Barataria. Po­lice said the men claimed to have ar­rived in Trinidad two years ago aboard a fish­ing ves­sel. The group was hand­ed over to Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers who were con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions up to late yes­ter­day.

Po­lice said checks at an aban­doned house near the men's home on Up­per Sixth Av­enue, Barataria, re­vealed more than 2 ki­los of mar­i­jua­na hid­den in the build­ing. Po­lice al­so dis­cov­ered more than 150 mar­i­jua­na seedlings at that lo­ca­tion. A Barataria man was al­so ar­rest­ed by po­lice dur­ing the ex­er­cise and charged with pos­ses­sion of 300 grammes of high grade mar­i­jua­na. He was be­ing sought by po­lice on four out­stand­ing war­rants. The ex­er­cise was head­ed by Su­per­in­ten­dent John Daniel and in­clud­ed PCs Trevor Ram­baran, Jerome Gor­don and of­fi­cers of the Mor­vant and Barataria CID.