The Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) says it led a ma­jor mul­ti-agency op­er­a­tion, “Op­er­a­tion Think­ing Point,” which re­sult­ed in the ar­rest of a 42-year-old male Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­al and the res­cue of five Venezue­lan fe­males, ages 16 to 26.

In a state­ment, the CTU said the op­er­a­tion was con­duct­ed at the cor­ner of War­den Road and Balka­ran Street, Point Fortin, fol­low­ing sev­en months of in-depth in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

The sus­pect is cur­rent­ly in po­lice cus­tody and will be in­ter­viewed in re­la­tion to three child traf­fick­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

It said to­day’s op­er­a­tion builds on a pre­vi­ous CTU and TTPS op­er­a­tion in May 2024 at the same lo­ca­tion, where ten fe­males, in­clud­ing six mi­nors, were res­cued.

Con­tin­ued CTU in­quiries from that case di­rect­ly led to to­day’s break­through.

The CTU ex­plained that This op­er­a­tion was con­duct­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with sev­er­al key agen­cies, in­clud­ing the Min­istry of Fi­nance – Val­u­a­tion Di­vi­sion, Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch (TTPS), Spe­cial Branch (TTPS), Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (TTPS), Air Sup­port Unit (TTPS), Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tors – Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions (TTPS), Transna­tion­al Or­ga­nized Crime Unit (TOCU), the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion, and the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

” As the CTU ad­vances a holis­tic in­ves­tiga­tive ap­proach, fi­nan­cial records are now be­ing ex­am­ined to trace and dis­man­tle traf­fick­ing net­works. Un­der Sec­tion 24 of the Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act, traf­fick­ers’ as­sets can be for­feit­ed up­on con­vic­tion.

The CTU re­mains com­mit­ted to bring­ing traf­fick­ers to jus­tice and en­sur­ing the pro­tec­tion of vul­ner­a­ble per­sons.”