A male pas­sen­ger ar­riv­ing at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port from New York has been charged af­ter Cus­toms of­fi­cers al­leged­ly found a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion in his pos­ses­sion.

The dis­cov­ery was made on Au­gust 15, dur­ing rou­tine Cus­toms op­er­a­tions at the air­port.

Ac­cord­ing to the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion, the pas­sen­ger ar­rived aboard Jet­Blue Air­ways Flight B617 from John F Kennedy In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Of­fi­cers found one Ruger firearm, one mag­a­zine and 12 rounds of .380 am­mu­ni­tion in his pos­ses­sion.

The pas­sen­ger was sub­se­quent­ly for­mal­ly charged un­der Sec­tions 212(a) and 213(a) of the Cus­toms Act, Chap­ter 78:01.

He ap­peared be­fore a Mas­ter of the High Court on Tues­day, Au­gust 18.

The charges were laid in­dictably, mean­ing the ac­cused was not re­quired to en­ter a plea at that stage of the pro­ceed­ings.

The court re­mand­ed him in­to cus­tody and he is sched­uled to reap­pear on Sep­tem­ber 9.

The Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion said the seizure formed part of its on­go­ing ef­forts to pre­vent the il­lic­it im­por­ta­tion of firearms, am­mu­ni­tion and oth­er pro­hib­it­ed or re­strict­ed items in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The di­vi­sion said it con­tin­ues to main­tain a “ro­bust pres­ence” at the coun­try’s ports of en­try.

The seizure comes amid con­tin­ued ef­forts by law en­force­ment agen­cies to in­ter­cept il­le­gal firearms and am­mu­ni­tion en­ter­ing the coun­try.

Cus­toms of­fi­cers con­duct in­spec­tions of pas­sen­gers, bag­gage and car­go at ports of en­try as part of mea­sures aimed at pre­vent­ing pro­hib­it­ed and re­strict­ed goods from en­ter­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The di­vi­sion said it re­mains com­mit­ted to strength­en­ing con­trols at the na­tion’s ports and dis­rupt­ing the il­le­gal move­ment of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion.

The ac­cused re­mains in cus­tody pend­ing his next court ap­pear­ance on Sep­tem­ber 9.