A prison of­fi­cer as­signed to the Arou­ca Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison has been ar­rest­ed and charged with mul­ti­ple of­fences, in­clud­ing drug traf­fick­ing and the pos­ses­sion of pro­hib­it­ed items, fol­low­ing a co­or­di­nat­ed in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tion.

On Sat­ur­day, the 28-year-old of Williamsville was for­mal­ly charged. The ac­cused is cur­rent­ly de­tained at the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion and is sched­uled to ap­pear be­fore the Ari­ma Mas­ters Court to­day.

The charges stem from an ini­tial re­port made on May 20, when law en­force­ment of­fi­cers re­ceived in­tel­li­gence that the sus­pect was al­leged­ly in pos­ses­sion of con­tra­band while on du­ty at the prison.

A joint op­er­a­tion was car­ried out on June 11 be­tween the hours of 12:05 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. Dur­ing the ex­er­cise, the of­fi­cer was re-ar­rest­ed out­side the Arou­ca Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison fol­low­ing pre­lim­i­nary in­quiries and a pri­or re­lease pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

A search war­rant was ex­e­cut­ed at the sus­pect’s res­i­dence, but no il­le­gal items were found at that lo­ca­tion.

Last Fri­day, Cpl Seechan and Cpl Williams con­duct­ed fur­ther in­ter­views with the sus­pect. Le­gal ad­vice was then sought from the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, which led to the lay­ing of the fol­low­ing charges:

Mis­be­hav­ior in Pub­lic Of­fice – for traf­fick­ing a dan­ger­ous drug, specif­i­cal­ly co­caine, in­to the prison fa­cil­i­ty in ex­change for pay­ment.

Mis­be­hav­ior in Pub­lic Of­fice – for in­tro­duc­ing pro­hib­it­ed items in­to the prison. These items in­clude mul­ti­ple cel­lu­lar phones, sim cards, charg­ers, head­sets, and USB ca­bles.

Traf­fick­ing in a Dan­ger­ous Drug – specif­i­cal­ly co­caine – in­to the Arou­ca Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison.

Law en­force­ment of­fi­cials have in­di­cat­ed that in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the mat­ter are on­go­ing.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice have reaf­firmed their com­mit­ment to root­ing out cor­rup­tion with­in cor­rec­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions and en­sur­ing the in­tegri­ty of prison op­er­a­tions.