Five of the nine peo­ple de­tained for ques­tion­ing in con­nec­tion with the kid­nap­ping for ran­som of Nar­ine Maraj, 61 and his wife, De­ok­ie Mat­tie Maraj, 52 have been re­leased.

The oth­er four re­main in po­lice cus­tody as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.

The cou­ple was tak­en from their home at gun­point by five men at 5:50 pm last Sat­ur­day and a ran­som of $2 mil­lion was de­mand­ed for their re­lease.

The cou­ple’s sil­ver Ford Fo­cus was al­so tak­en by the kid­nap­pers.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease is­sued by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, a co­or­di­nat­ed ap­proach was adopt­ed by in­ves­ti­ga­tors un­der the su­per­vi­sion of Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc Don­ald Ja­cob and the ex­ten­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­clud­ed of­fi­cers from the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit, the East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force, the North­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force, the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team, Op­er­a­tions and In­tel­li­gence, Ca­nine Branch, the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force, the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit and the Air Sup­port Unit.

Sev­er­al op­er­a­tions were co­or­di­nat­ed and con­duct­ed be­tween the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 8 and Jan­u­ary 11 in the Cumaca For­est and en­vi­rons, which re­sult­ed in both Maraj and his wife be­ing se­cured on Jan­u­ary 9 and Jan­u­ary 11 re­spec­tive­ly.

The cou­ple’s ve­hi­cle was al­so re­cov­ered.

The nine sus­pects ini­tial­ly de­tained be­tween the ages of 16 to 50 are from the North­ern and East­ern Di­vi­sions.

Ja­cob com­mend­ed the ded­i­cat­ed and pro­fes­sion­al work of the of­fi­cers in­volved in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in en­sur­ing the safe re­turn of the vic­tims.

—Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant