Three drug smug­glers will ap­pear in court this morn­ing fol­low­ing the seizure of al­most $100,000 in mar­i­jua­na by the T&T Coast Guard yes­ter­day.

In a press re­lease yes­ter­day, Coast Guard pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Lieu­tenant Sher­ron Man­swell said the sus­pects, two men and a woman, were de­tained by a team of of­fi­cers three miles off the coast of Cha­cachacare Is­land. Ac­cord­ing to Man­swell, the of­fi­cers were on pa­trol around 1.17 am when they stopped a pirogue named "Kelsea" af­ter its oc­cu­pants start­ed be­hav­ing sus­pi­cious­ly up­on see­ing them.

The of­fi­cers found a par­cel of mar­i­jua­na wrapped in plas­tic aboard the ves­sel and re­cov­ered a cro­cus bag con­tain­ing 24 sim­i­lar parcels, which was found float­ing near to the boat.In­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve the smug­glers dumped their drugs over­board up­on see­ing the Coast Guard in­ter­cep­tor pa­trol boat.

The sus­pects were ar­rest­ed and the boat was towed to the Coast Guard's Staubles Bay base.

The sus­pects were lat­er hand­ed over to de­tec­tives from the Or­gan­ised Crime, Nar­cotics and Firearms Bu­reau (OC­NFB). The drugs weighed a to­tal of 7.2 ki­los and has an es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of $93,600.