Five months after police raided an apartment in central Trinidad and seized a large quantity high-powered weapons and marijuana, a businessman and his three alleged associates appeared in court charged with trafficking the drugs alone.
Dwayne Thomas, 33, of Sandy Way, Fairways, Maraval; Ricardo Harewood, of Sixth Avenue, Malik, Barataria; Dwayne Havelock, of Claxton Bay and Crighton Johnson, of Santa Cruz, were granted a total of $3.8 million in bail after appearing before Chief Magistrate Maria Busby-Earle-Caddle in the Port-of-Spain Magistrates’ Court yesterday afternoon.
Besides being charged for drug trafficking, each man was also charged under the Anti-Gang Act.
Thomas was charged with organising, planning and facilitating a gang in committing the offence, while the others were charged with providing support to a gang by assisting in trafficking the drugs.
In deciding on the bail for each man, Busby-Earle-Caddle considered that all except Johnson had pending cases for similar offences. They were each eventually granted $1 million bail, while Johnson got $800,000 bail.
As part of the conditions of their bail, Busby-Earle-Caddle ordered that they surrender their passports to the court and report to police once weekly for the duration of the case.
Before adjourning the case, Busby-Earle-Caddle took notes on the drugs, which were taken to court in two shipping barrels, a suitcase and several crocus bags.
On November 8 last year, police officers of the Special Operations Response Team (SORT) and several specialised units led by Police Commissioner Gary Griffith raided an apartment located at Macaya Trace, Munroe Road, Cunupia.
During the raid, officers found and seized a large cache of assault rifles and over 80 kilos of marijuana with a street value of a little over $1 million.
Thomas and another man, Jerome Oliverrie,were allegedly held during the raid, but only Oliverrie was initially charged for the drugs and the guns, as Thomas was released pending further investigations. Oliverrie had also been released on $1 million bail.
Thomas, who allegedly owns two freight companies and a vessel, was rearrested last week at his Maraval home.
During the hearing, Johnson’s lawyer Criston J Williams sought to raise concerns over the police’s conduct in the case.
Williams claimed that investigators said that the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had decided to charge his client before he (Johnson) was told of the allegations against him and given an opportunity to be interviewed by detectives.
Thomas, Harewood and Havelock were represented by Ian Brooks. The group is expected to reappear in court on May 7.