A man­hunt has been launched for five Venezue­lan na­tion­als who es­caped from the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre in Aripo yes­ter­day.

Po­lice said the five es­caped by cut­ting a hole in the roof of the fa­cil­i­ty.

Po­lice were alert­ed around 3.20 pm that the five men had gone miss­ing. They were last seen at the East­ern Main Road fa­cil­i­ty at 2.45 pm. It is be­lieved they fled through the mess­ing area. The es­capees have been iden­ti­fied as Chris­t­ian Jose Riv­iero Pa­rades, Leirz­er Omar Meza Font, Samuel Ed­uar­do Gon­za­lez Ro­driguez, Miguel Sanchez, and Jhonathan Je­sus Car­reno.

Of­fi­cers from North­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force Units One and Two, Ari­ma CID, Cu­mu­to Mo­bile, Air Sup­port, and Ari­ma OCP re­spond­ed and con­duct­ed search­es of the sur­round­ing area, but the men were not lo­cat­ed.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro was on site to help co­or­di­nate a man­hunt that was un­der­way.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice is urg­ing the pub­lic to re­main vig­i­lant and re­port any sight­ings or sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty to 999, 555, or the near­est po­lice sta­tion.