Po­lice have seized two il­le­gal firearms, in­clud­ing a high-pow­ered ri­fle, dur­ing op­er­a­tions in Co­corite and Point Fortin un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency.

On Fri­day evening, of­fi­cers of the Guard and Emer­gency Branch re­cov­ered a ri­fle loaded with ten rounds of am­mu­ni­tion dur­ing a house-to-house op­er­a­tion in the Wa­ter­hole area of Co­corite.

Act­ing on in­tel­li­gence and af­ter re­port­ed­ly hear­ing sev­er­al gun­shots be­tween 6 pm and 9 pm, of­fi­cers searched a bushy area be­hind build­ing four near a mosque.

There, they found the loaded weapon hid­den be­neath a gal­vanise sheet.

No one was ar­rest­ed, but po­lice say an ar­rest is im­mi­nent.

The firearm has been sent to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre for bal­lis­tic test­ing.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice said the seizure un­der­scores the im­por­tance of tar­get­ed law en­force­ment ac­tion un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions in re­mov­ing il­le­gal weapons from com­mu­ni­ties.

In a sep­a­rate in­ci­dent around 4.20 am to­day, the South-West­ern Di­vi­sion­al Task Force, West, seized a Jen­nings pis­tol and sev­en rounds of .380 am­mu­ni­tion at a bar along the Point Fortin Main Road.

Act­ing on in­tel­li­gence, of­fi­cers led by Cpl Swan and in­clud­ing WPC Cob­ham, PCs Steele, Garvin, and Ma­son searched a man who matched the de­scrip­tion of a firearm sus­pect. While noth­ing il­le­gal was found on the man, of­fi­cers searched the male wash­room of the es­tab­lish­ment and dis­cov­ered the firearm hid­den be­neath the toi­let tank cov­er.

Both firearms are un­der­go­ing foren­sic analy­sis as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.