Po­lice seized 661.9 kilo­grammes of cannabis, with an es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of $19.8 mil­lion, dur­ing an an­ti-drug op­er­a­tion off Chatham Beach, Ce­dros, yes­ter­day morn­ing.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice said the seizure was made af­ter of­fi­cers of the South West­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force, sup­port­ed by the T&T Coast Guard, act­ed on in­tel­li­gence re­gard­ing a ves­sel re­port­ed­ly head­ing to­wards the beach.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, of­fi­cers ob­served sev­er­al in­di­vid­u­als trans­fer­ring large pack­ages from the ves­sel to the shore­line at about 4.50 am. How­ev­er, the sus­pects fled the area in a 27-foot white pirogue and es­caped out to sea when law en­force­ment of­fi­cers moved in.

A search of the area led to the dis­cov­ery of 17 bales con­tain­ing 1,155 pack­ets of sus­pect­ed cannabis.

The drugs were tak­en to the Cap-de-Ville Po­lice Post, where they were ex­am­ined and weighed. The haul amount­ed to 661.9 kilo­grammes and has an es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of $19,833,171.60.

PC Cum­mings is con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.