Derek Achong

Three men and a Venezue­lan woman have been de­nied bail af­ter ap­pear­ing in court on gang and hu­man traf­fick­ing charges. 

An­drew George, 46, of Em­ba­cadere, San Fer­nan­do; Damien Scoon, 42, of Car­los Street, Cou­va; Matthew Ross, 39, of Chase Vil­lage, Ch­agua­nas; and 32-year-old Venezue­lan Belzani Or­te­ga Farias, who re­sides in Cunu­pia, were re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody af­ter ap­pear­ing be­fore Mag­is­trate Ra­jen­dra Ram­bachan in the Ch­agua­nas Mag­is­trates’ Court on Mon­day. 

All four were charged with firearm and am­mu­ni­tion pos­ses­sion, co­caine traf­fick­ing and mar­i­jua­na pos­ses­sion. 

Ross, George, Farias were charged with sup­port­ing a gang leader in the com­mis­sion of a gang-re­lat­ed of­fence. Scoon was charged with be­ing a gang leader and for co­caine and mar­i­jua­na pos­ses­sion. 

The group was ar­rest­ed, last Tues­day, as of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT), Counter-Traf­fick­ing Spe­cial Task Force and Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit raised two lo­ca­tions in cen­tral Trinidad in­clud­ing a bar. 

Dur­ing the ex­er­cise, po­lice ar­rest­ed sev­en sus­pects and res­cued 46 women. They al­so re­cov­ered a Glock pis­tol with 13 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, quan­ti­ties of mar­i­jua­na and co­caine and a quan­ti­ty of cash.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion was su­per­vised by Sgt St Clair, PCs An­toine and Williams and WPC Ed­wards of the Counter-Traf­fick­ing Spe­cial Task Force. 

The group is ex­pect­ed to reap­pear in court next Mon­day.