Three peo­ple de­tained dur­ing a ma­jor hu­man traf­fick­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion in To­ba­go have been charged fol­low­ing months of in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing and sur­veil­lance by the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU).

Ti­tus Du Bois, 41, Fran­cis Car­oli­na Ren­gel Oje­da, 26, and Da­mon Domon­ic Charles, 38, were charged on Wednes­day fol­low­ing ad­vice from the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

Du Bois and Ren­gel Oje­da were joint­ly charged with har­bour­ing and re­ceiv­ing a per­son for the pur­pose of ex­ploita­tion, con­trary to Sec­tion 16 of the Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act.

Ren­gel Oje­da and Charles were joint­ly charged with har­bour­ing a per­son for the pur­pose of ex­ploita­tion, while Charles was al­so charged with the sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion of a mi­nor.

The charges stem from Op­er­a­tion Ice­berg, the CTU's first ma­jor in­tel­li­gence-led hu­man traf­fick­ing op­er­a­tion in To­ba­go.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion cen­tred on al­le­ga­tions in­volv­ing a 17-year-old Venezue­lan girl who in­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve was de­ceived by what ap­peared to be a “le­git­i­mate em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ty” in Trinidad be­fore be­ing sub­ject­ed to sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors al­so al­lege that af­ter the girl be­lieved she had es­caped her cir­cum­stances and would be able to “re­build her life” in To­ba­go be­fore re­turn­ing home, the ex­ploita­tion con­tin­ued.

The op­er­a­tion un­fold­ed be­tween Ju­ly 22 and 25.

Du Bois was ar­rest­ed on Ju­ly 22 at Long Cir­cu­lar Road, St James, and of­fi­cers searched his Morne Co­co Road, Pe­tit Val­ley premis­es.

Ren­gel Oje­da was ar­rest­ed in Scar­bor­ough on Ju­ly 24, while Charles was in­ter­cept­ed and ar­rest­ed the fol­low­ing day in Sig­nal Hill.

Dur­ing the To­ba­go op­er­a­tion, of­fi­cers searched Charles' res­i­dence on Aqua­ma­rine Dri­ve, where they en­coun­tered and screened three Venezue­lan women aged be­tween 20 and 23.

Of­fi­cers al­so con­duct­ed an ex­er­cise at Chill Out Bar on Mil­ford Road, where five Latin Amer­i­can women, aged be­tween 22 and 44, were en­coun­tered and lat­er processed by Im­mi­gra­tion En­force­ment.

The three sus­pects were de­tained un­der Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders fol­low­ing their ar­rests while in­ves­ti­ga­tors con­tin­ued gath­er­ing ev­i­dence.

The PDOs is­sued in Ju­ly al­so al­leged that Ren­gel Oje­da and Charles played key roles in an or­gan­ised traf­fick­ing net­work in­volv­ing vul­ner­a­ble Latin Amer­i­can women.

Ac­cord­ing to the de­ten­tion or­der, Ren­gel Oje­da was al­leged­ly a se­nior fa­cil­i­ta­tor who re­cruit­ed women, re­ceived them when they ar­rived in Trinidad, trans­port­ed them be­tween the is­lands and act­ed as a trans­la­tor for the or­gan­i­sa­tion while fa­cil­i­tat­ing their sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion for fi­nan­cial gain.

Charles was ac­cused of act­ing as a prin­ci­pal han­dler, trans­porter and fa­cil­i­ta­tor. The or­der al­leged that he re­ceived and housed traf­fick­ing vic­tims sent from Trinidad, trans­port­ed them to lo­ca­tions where they were sex­u­al­ly ex­ploit­ed and used com­mer­cial premis­es as op­er­a­tional hubs.

Au­thor­i­ties al­so al­leged that both were linked to oth­er fa­cil­i­ta­tors and that Charles could in­ter­fere with wit­ness­es and on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions if re­leased.

The al­le­ga­tions con­tained in the PDOs have not been proven in court.

Un­der Sec­tion 16 of the Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act, a con­vic­tion on in­dict­ment can re­sult in a fine of at least $500,000 and im­pris­on­ment for at least 15 years.

The CTU is ask­ing any­one with in­for­ma­tion about sus­pect­ed hu­man traf­fick­ing to con­tact its toll-free hot­line at 800-4CTU or What­sApp re­port­ing line at 702-0467.