An­na-Lisa Paul

In what is be­ing de­scribed as one of the biggest drug erad­i­ca­tion ex­er­cis­es in T&T, East­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice on Tues­day de­stroyed mar­i­jua­na trees and seedlings val­ued at over $67 mil­lion. Prais­ing the ef­forts of po­lice as they at­tempt to curb the il­le­gal drug trade, pub­lic in­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer Sgt Wayne Mys­tar yes­ter­day said the law­men must be com­mend­ed for their hard work and com­mit­ment to the job.

Mys­tar made the state­ment dur­ing the week­ly me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain. The mar­i­jua­na erad­i­ca­tion ex­er­cise was car­ried out in the L'Anse Noire For­est, San­gre Grande, be­tween 9 am and 3 pm on Tues­day.

Of­fi­cers of the East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force un­der the su­per­vi­sion of Sgt Bap­tiste and Cpl Vial­va, along with of­fi­cers of the Or­gan­ised Crime Nar­cotics and Firearms Bu­reau (OC­NFB), were guid­ed by the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty he­li­copter Viper One as they jour­neyed in­to the for­est in search of the five mar­i­jua­na fields.

They lat­er de­stroyed 66,500 ful­ly grown mar­i­jua­na trees and 8,041 seedlings and 90 ki­los of cured mar­i­jua­na. Po­lice es­ti­mate the nar­cotics had an es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of $67,500,000. A home-made shot­gun was al­so found dur­ing the ex­er­cise.