Michael Gopee, the nephew of Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try Paula Gopee-Scoon, was re­mand­ed in­to State cus­tody when he ap­peared at the Cou­va Mag­is­trates’ Court on nine crim­i­nal charges to­day.

Gopee, 32, a welder and bar op­er­a­tor of Guapo-Cap-de-Ville Road, Point Fortin, was not called up­on to plead as the State in­dict­ed him on pos­ses­sion of 60 rounds of .56 am­mu­ni­tion and sev­en rounds of 9 mm am­mu­ni­tion, pos­ses­sion of two firearm com­po­nents and six counts of threat­en­ing to kill po­lice of­fi­cers.

Se­nior Mag­is­trate Alexan­der Prince de­nied bail based on the se­ri­ous­ness of the of­fences. Prince re­mand­ed Gopee in­to cus­tody and ad­journed the mat­ter to May 2. How­ev­er, Gopee can still ap­ply to a Judge-in-Cham­bers for bail. Po­lice ar­rest­ed Gopee on Fri­day when they stopped a black Ford Ranger trav­el­ling along the south­bound lane of the Solomon Ho­choy High­way near the In­di­an Trail over­pass.

Po­lice al­leged they stopped the ve­hi­cle af­ter they re­alised Gopee was not wear­ing a seat belt. They said the sus­pect got out of the pick­up and be­gan run­ning while the of­fi­cers spoke to the dri­ver. The of­fi­cers ran af­ter him and held him about 30 feet away. In his pock­et, the of­fi­cers al­leged­ly found the 60 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion.

The 34-year-old dri­ver, who is from Point Fortin, al­so was ar­rest­ed. Po­lice sub­se­quent­ly searched Gopee’s home in Point Fortin, where they al­leged­ly found one AK-47 mag­a­zine, a si­lencer and a quan­ti­ty of 9mm am­mu­ni­tion. They said the am­mu­ni­tion is for high-pow­ered as­sault ri­fles, in­clud­ing AK-47s.