Gun­fire erupt­ed near the shore­line at Bayshore West, Mara­bel­la, on Mon­day night af­ter po­lice ex­changed shots with men aboard boats sus­pect­ed of of­fload­ing al­co­hol.

Po­lice said that around 11.45 pm, five of­fi­cers on mo­bile pa­trol in an area known as “Pak­istan” ob­served a group of in­di­vid­u­als gath­ered along the road­way.

Near­by, sev­er­al men were seen re­mov­ing box­es from two fish­ing boats close to the shore and plac­ing them on­to a makeshift dock.

As of­fi­cers ap­proached, shout­ing “Po­lice! Po­lice!”, some of the men fled on foot while oth­ers re­versed the boats in­to the ocean at high speed.

Po­lice re­port­ed that the oc­cu­pants of the boats opened fire on the of­fi­cers, who took cov­er and re­turned fire. The sus­pects sub­se­quent­ly es­caped in­to the Gulf of Paria.

Of­fi­cers re­cov­ered four cas­es of one-litre Hen­nessy co­gnac and five cas­es of one-litre John­nie Walk­er scotch whisky at the scene.

In to­tal, po­lice dis­charged ap­prox­i­mate­ly 61 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.