Two San­ta Cruz men who were de­tained by po­lice fol­low­ing the res­cue of a Venezue­lan woman say they were not part of any kid­nap­ping at­tempt.

Sha­ka Ed­munds told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that he and his cousin Kodie Guer­ra on­ly went to the St Mar­garet's Po­lice Sta­tion in Clax­ton Bay to in­quire about a friend who was in cus­tody there. Af­ter speak­ing to an of­fi­cer, they were asked a few ques­tions and de­tained for fur­ther ques­tion­ing.

Po­lice con­firmed that the two men were held for ques­tion­ing on Mon­day night. Ed­munds and Guer­ra were trans­ferred to the West End Po­lice Sta­tion, to­geth­er with the two sus­pects who were held in the ve­hi­cle in which the woman was found. How­ev­er, they were in­ter­viewed by in­ves­ti­ga­tors and re­leased around 4 am yes­ter­day.

“We weren't ac­tu­al­ly ar­rest­ed, we were de­tained for ques­tion­ing and re­leased. We are home right about now but peo­ple are shar­ing our pho­to on so­cial me­dia, mak­ing it look like we were ar­rest­ed," Ed­munds said.

"We had noth­ing to do with it. We just went to in­quire about a friend who was ar­rest­ed. My phone has been ring­ing whole day, peo­ple have been call­ing me non-stop and this is mak­ing me feel re­al shame.”

Mean­while, Counter-Traf­fick­ing agents are in­ves­ti­gat­ing whether Sun­day's kid­nap­ping, in which one of the al­leged ab­duc­tors is a Spe­cial Re­served Po­lice con­sta­ble, is re­lat­ed to a hu­man traf­fick­ing ring.

In a ma­jor res­cue op­er­a­tion, po­lice po­si­tioned units at sev­er­al lo­ca­tions along the Solomon Ho­choy High­way. Around 10.30 pm they in­ter­cept­ed a dark-coloured mini­van near the Macaulay Over­pass, Clax­ton Bay, and res­cued the 24-year-old woman.

A re­port stat­ed that around 8.30 pm, the woman was walk­ing along the Diego Mar­tin Main Road in the com­pa­ny of her male com­pan­ion when the mini­van pulled up along­side them. A man got out and grabbed the woman and told the woman's com­pan­ion he could not do any­thing as they had a po­lice of­fi­cer with them. The men then sped off with the woman.

Ramkissoon re­port­ed the in­ci­dent to po­lice and teams from the West­ern Di­vi­sion Gang Unit and West­ern Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers head­ed by ACP Ir­win Hack­shaw, Snr Supt Garth Nel­son and In­sp Vin­cent went in pur­suit of the mini­van.

Af­ter the res­cue, the vic­tim was tak­en for med­ical treat­ment. The 28-year-old SRP con­sta­ble, who has just over five year’s ser­vice and a 39-year-old Tarou­ba truck dri­ver were de­tained and tak­en back to the St Mar­garet’s Po­lice Sta­tion.

ASP Ramdeen, In­sp Nanan and of­fi­cers of the Di­vi­sion's gang unit were sent to the sta­tion to car­ry out fur­ther en­quiries. While there, a 35-year-old en­gi­neer and 37-year-old casi­no work­er, both of low­er San­ta Cruz ar­rived and en­quired about the sus­pects in cus­tody. Nanan be­came sus­pi­cious and or­dered that the men be in­ter­ro­gat­ed, which re­sult­ed in them be­ing de­tained. All the sus­pects and the ve­hi­cle were tak­en to the West End Po­lice Sta­tion, where of­fi­cers are con­tin­u­ing in­quiries.

Sources told Guardian Me­dia that the woman, who was seek­ing asy­lum, was promised help when she en­tered the coun­try sev­er­al weeks ago. How­ev­er, she was forced in­to work­ing for the men against her will. She was able to reach out to her male com­pan­ion, whom she had been speak­ing to through Face­book for sev­er­al months and man­aged to es­cape and meet up with him.

Sources say the woman was con­tact­ed by a fe­male friend in Venezuela who told her she was com­ing to T&T yes­ter­day and want­ed her to meet her at the Ce­dros port. Po­lice be­lieve the men found out about the ren­dezvous and were lat­er able to pin­point where the woman had gone when she left the port with her friend.