Six Venezue­lan na­tion­als were ar­rest­ed in Grande Riv­iere on Wednes­day.

The Venezue­lans, all male, were said to be on their way in­land to col­lect sup­plies for fish­ing boats.

Guardian Me­dia was told that the Venezue­lans were known to fish along the north­east coast and sell their catch to var­i­ous sea­side vil­lages.

Two of the for­eign­ers were ar­rest­ed in the morn­ing, while an­oth­er four were de­tained in the af­ter­noon.

Of­fi­cials from the T&T Coast Guard, the Air Guard and the Po­lice Ser­vice were in­volved in the ar­rests. A he­li­copter hov­ered over­head dur­ing the raid.

In a video post­ed to so­cial me­dia, one Matelot res­i­dent said the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials were "wicked" to pur­sue the Venezue­lans with such force claim­ing they had got­ten in­to dif­fi­cul­ty with their boats and re­quired as­sis­tance.

The ar­rest of these six Venezue­lans come ex­act­ly one week since an­oth­er group were ar­rest­ed dur­ing an an­ti-crime ex­er­cise at Los Iros Beach, Erin.

Dur­ing that raid, three Venezue­lan women, whose ages ranged from 22 to 41 years, and a three-year-old Venezue­lan boy, were in the coun­try tak­en in­to cus­tody while two Trinidad men were al­so ar­rest­ed.

There was out­rage from cit­i­zens about the lack of pa­trols to ar­rest il­le­gal im­mi­grants af­ter that in­ci­dent.