Po­lice are cur­rent­ly hunt­ing for an Ari­ma busi­ness­man who is the reg­is­tered ex­porter of a con­tain­er found with some $9 mil­lion worth in co­caine hid­den in­side.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice con­firmed that 24 pounds of co­caine bound for St Mar­teen were seized at the Port of Point Lisas last Tues­day.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, around 9 pm last Tues­day, Cus­toms of­fi­cers were scan­ning a con­tain­er at the Ex­port Di­vi­sion of the port when they picked up some­thing sus­pi­cious. The con­tain­er, which was trans­port­ed from Ma­tu­ri­ta, Ari­ma, was tak­en to the ex­am­i­na­tion sta­tion where Cus­toms of­fi­cers no­ticed what ap­peared to be co­caine hid­den in­side the con­tain­er, which was loaded with food­stuff.

Po­lice and oth­er of­fi­cials were called in and con­firmed it was co­caine.

In­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers said the con­tain­er was ad­dressed to an In­di­an busi­ness­man in St Mar­teen. How­ev­er, the con­tain­er was sent to its fi­nal des­ti­na­tion by the Ari­ma busi­ness­man. It is sus­pect­ed that the busi­ness­man is the same per­son who was set to re­ceive a con­tain­er filled with mar­i­jua­na from Ja­maica last year. He lat­er de­nied it was him and claimed no knowl­edge of the il­lic­it drugs. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.

3 ar­rest­ed in po­lice ex­er­cise

In an un­re­lat­ed in­ci­dent, an an­ti-crime ex­er­cise con­duct­ed in the North East­ern Di­vi­sion (NED) re­sult­ed in three peo­ple be­ing ar­rest­ed for pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na, seizure of two guns, a quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion and cam­ou­flage cloth­ing.

The ex­er­cise was spear­head­ed by Snr Supt In­raj Bal­ram, ASP Rame­sar, In­sp Baird, su­per­vised by Cpl Lavia and con­duct­ed be­tween 1 pm and 11 pm on Fri­day in the San Juan dis­trict.

Act­ing on in­for­ma­tion, of­fi­cers went to Kan­hai Street, Aranguez, where they stopped and search a ve­hi­cle with two men which re­sult­ed in 77 grammes of mar­i­jua­na be­ing found and seized. The men were ar­rest­ed and charged in con­nec­tion and are ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore a mag­is­trate to­mor­row. The of­fi­cers then pro­ceed­ed to the El So­cor­ro home of a known of­fend­er where they ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant and dis­cov­ered 15 grammes of mar­i­jua­na. The sus­pect was ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the find. He too is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear in court to­mor­row.

Al­so based on in­for­ma­tion re­ceived, of­fi­cers went to Newalloville Road Ex­ten­sion, San Juan, where a search of an aban­doned build­ing was con­duct­ed and two re­volvers with six rounds of .38 am­mu­ni­tion, one cam­ou­flage jack­et and one cam­ou­flage pants were found.