Thir­teen out of 15 Venezue­lan na­tion­als, who were found to have en­tered the coun­try il­le­gal­ly, have been fined by a Mag­is­trate, fol­low­ing their ar­rest by of­fi­cers of the Im­mi­gra­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Five Venezue­lan fe­males and ten Venezue­lan males were ar­rest­ed dur­ing ex­er­cis­es con­duct­ed by of­fi­cers of the TTPS’ Im­mi­gra­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (Ar­eas North and South).  The ex­er­cis­es were car­ried out from 8:30 am to 2 pm on Mon­day 11th, and 10 am to 3:30 pm on Tues­day 12th De­cem­ber 2023.

Dur­ing the in­tel­li­gence-led ex­er­cise, po­lice of­fi­cers con­duct­ed search­es at sev­er­al lo­ca­tions in the South­ern and West­ern Di­vi­sions. 

The 15 in­di­vid­u­als ap­peared vir­tu­al­ly be­fore Mag­is­trate Armi­na De­onar­i­nesingh, where they plead­ed guilty to the charges.

The five fe­males were all fined $5,000 each, or in de­fault, face nine months’ sim­ple im­pris­on­ment.  Eight of the ten males were fined $5,000 each, or in de­fault, nine months’ hard labour. They have 30 days in which to pay the fines.

Two of the males were re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

The ex­er­cise was part of an on­go­ing ini­tia­tive of the TTPS Im­mi­gra­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit of the Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment (CID), and was co­or­di­nat­ed by Supt. Pa­ri­man, ASP Ram­dass, In­sp. Philip and Sgt. Daulat.

Mean­while, of­fi­cers of the Four Roads CID and Ca­nine Branch con­duct­ed an ex­er­cise in the Pe­tit Val­ley dis­trict be­tween 4:00 and 8:00 pm, on Tues­day (De­cem­ber 12), dur­ing which they ar­rest­ed one male sus­pect and seized a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na.

The drugs were found hid­den in a sil­ver Nis­san B-14 mo­tor ve­hi­cle and weighed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1.1 kilo­grammes.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing in­to the mat­ter.