Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

Fifty-four peo­ple were de­tained by po­lice on Sat­ur­day night in­to Sun­day morn­ing, af­ter of­fi­cers from the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit and the Crime Sup­pres­sion Unit con­duct­ed a raid at a house along Mar­shall Trace, Munroe Road in Cunu­pia.

Po­lice said the in­di­vid­u­als, in­clud­ing a large num­ber of for­eign na­tion­als, were held in con­nec­tion with sus­pect­ed pros­ti­tu­tion ac­tiv­i­ties at the prop­er­ty.

Res­i­dents of Mar­shall Trace yes­ter­day claimed parts of Cunu­pia and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties have be­come a haven for un­doc­u­ment­ed mi­grants who use the area to hide and en­gage in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing pros­ti­tu­tion.

Yesina Gon­za­les, a hu­man rights ac­tivist and head of the THEMIS Foun­da­tion of the Amer­i­c­as, said au­thor­i­ties must en­sure those de­tained are not vic­tims of hu­man traf­fick­ing.

“The Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit must con­duct a prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion to de­ter­mine whether these women are be­ing traf­ficked,” Gon­za­les said.

“There are many women who are be­ing held against their will. Some are kid­napped, beat­en, raped and forced in­to il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties while call­ing for help.”

She said in some cas­es, vic­tims are forced to pay large sums of mon­ey to their cap­tors in or­der to se­cure their free­dom. She al­so not­ed that no ar­rests have been made in con­nec­tion with the dis­cov­ery of the bod­ies of two His­pan­ic women found buried in shal­low graves along Ram­saran Trace, War­ren Road, Cunu­pia, on June 26, 2025.