Po­lice of­fi­cers res­cued five Latin Amer­i­can women last week and have since charged two men with hu­man traf­fick­ing and com­mit­ting a se­ries of sex­u­al of­fences against the women.

A state­ment is­sued by the TTPS said fol­low­ing a sting op­er­a­tion in St Ann’s on Au­gust 10, Kea­gan David­son, 35, of San Juan, was charged with two counts of in­de­cent as­sault; while Sher­man Slad­den, 43, of no fixed place of abode, was charged with re­ceiv­ing and har­bour­ing an­oth­er per­son for the pur­pose of sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion, trans­port­ing an­oth­er for the pur­pose of pros­ti­tu­tion and re­ceiv­ing a fi­nan­cial ben­e­fit that re­sult­ed from the traf­fick­ing in per­sons.

The TTPS said dur­ing Au­gust 10 to Au­gust 11, a joint in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tion was con­duct­ed by of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU), Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU), In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF), Cy­ber and So­cial Me­dia Unit (CSMU) and the Stolen Ve­hi­cles Unit in the St Ann’s dis­trict.

The ex­er­cise re­sult­ed in five women be­ing res­cued and the ar­rest of five Trinida­di­ans.

A sil­ver Nis­san Wingroad Wag­on, which was be­ing dri­ven by one of the sus­pects, was al­so seized.

Two sus­pects were sub­se­quent­ly re­leased but in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.

The ac­cused were charged by WPC Tim­o­thy of the CTU.