Derek Achong

A 60-year-old Unit­ed States cit­i­zen who claimed to have armed him­self with an il­le­gal firearm af­ter a spate of rob­beries at his Ma­yaro home was yes­ter­day de­tained by po­lice. The re­tiree, of Fron­tin Road, Guayagua­yare, was ar­rest­ed by San­gre Grande po­lice af­ter he drove through a road block in Man­zanil­la around 6 am.

The man and a 33-year-old friend from Pe­nal, were held af­ter the po­lice found a loaded Smith and Wes­son .38 re­volver with six rounds of am­mu­ni­tion hid­den in their car. In a lat­er search of the man's home, po­lice re­cov­ered an­oth­er round of am­mu­ni­tion and ar­rest­ed his wife.

While un­der in­ter­ro­ga­tion the man ad­mit­ted to buy­ing the firearm sev­er­al months ago af­ter he and his wife were vic­tims of rob­beries at their home. He said he bought the firearm for the pro­tec­tion of fam­i­ly and prop­er­ty. All three are ex­pect­ed to be charged lat­er to­day with arms and am­mu­ni­tion charges in time for an ap­pear­ance be­fore a San­gre Grande mag­is­trate on Mon­day morn­ing.

Ten peo­ple were al­so ar­rest­ed in the road block for mar­i­jua­na pos­ses­sion. Six oth­ers were de­tained in re­la­tion to out­stand­ing war­rants and out­stand­ing court fines. The ex­er­cise was co-or­di­nat­ed by ASP Neville Sankar, Sgt Ken Lutch­man, Cpl Nicholas Vial­va and PC Kis­han Sankar.