The well-or­ches­trat­ed kid­nap­ping of Ja­maican busi­ness­man Yohan Chin is be­lieved to be linked to the nar­cot­ic em­pires of slain Cen­tral busi­ness­man Shel­don Sukhdeo and an­oth­er busi­ness­man in South Trinidad who sells lux­u­ry ve­hi­cles.

Some of these ve­hi­cles are be­lieved to have been used to bring co­caine in­to T&T from Venezuela.

Sukhdeo, who was kid­napped and then found dead in Las Lo­mas last Jan­u­ary, was the broth­er of slain Cen­tral car deal­er Sheron Sukhdeo, known in the crim­i­nal un­der­world as World Boss. Sheron was killed on March 26 last year and fol­low­ing his mur­der over a dozen peo­ple were marked for death, forc­ing res­i­dents to live un­der a self-im­posed cur­few.

Sukhdeo’s wife Rachael went in­to hid­ing with her chil­dren. Her broth­er Phillip Bas­sant was lat­er killed, along with close friend Joshua Plaza and her dri­ver and con­fi­dante Ker­win Beck­les, all with­in the space of six weeks.

Chin is still miss­ing and po­lice sources said yes­ter­day they were now pur­su­ing in­for­ma­tion that the kid­nap­ping was or­ches­trat­ed by the drug king­pins who are pos­ing as le­git­i­mate lux­u­ry car deal­ers.

Guardian Me­dia’s Lead Ed­i­tor of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Mark Bas­sant, in an ex­clu­sive re­port yes­ter­day, re­vealed that Venezue­lan law en­force­ment had seized a TT$40 mil­lion co­caine ship­ment they be­lieved was be­ing trans­port­ed to T&T on Wednes­day. The co­caine was be­ing trans­port­ed in lux­u­ry ve­hi­cles which had se­cret com­part­ments.

A source who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said it was pos­si­ble that Chin was set up by the drug lords pos­ing as car deal­ers, who are now de­mand­ing US$6 mil­lion ran­som in re­turn for his safe­ty.

The source said short­ly af­ter Chin moved in­to Aileen Av­enue, Block Four, Palmiste, his busi­ness part­ner al­so moved in­to an­oth­er apart­ment on the same street.

Chin owned a lux­u­ry Porche Panam­era which he pur­chased for over $1 mil­lion from the south busi­ness­man, whose fa­ther was al­so kid­napped a few years ago.

A po­lice source con­firmed that af­ter Chin was kid­napped, a de­mand was made for his Porche Panam­era, his part­ner’s black Mer­cedes Benz S55 and a piece of land at Boy Cato Road, Chin Chin, to be sold and US$6 mil­lion paid in ex­change for his life.

Chin’s busi­ness part­ner, who is as­sist­ing po­lice with in­ves­ti­ga­tions, re­port­ed the kid­nap­ping on Tues­day, two days af­ter Chin was kid­napped around 5 am by armed men dressed in po­lice uni­form. On Tues­day night, po­lice raid­ed Chin’s house and seized some items in a bid to find his where­abouts.

The busi­ness part­ner, in a state­ment to po­lice, said he re­ceived a call from Chin on Sun­day say­ing armed men wear­ing TTPS uni­forms had kid­napped him. Chin told him the kid­nap­pers want­ed mon­ey and he would call back with in­struc­tions.

The busi­ness part­ner was in­struct­ed to go to Chin’s home four hous­es away and move his Porche Panam­era for safe keep­ing. Chin al­so ad­vised him to or­gan­ise $400,000 and not in­volve the po­lice. The Mer­cedez Benz S55 is worth more than a mil­lion.

ASP Par­ri­man, Sgt Williams and of­fi­cers from the An­ti-kid­nap­ping Squad are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.