An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Der­rick “Stones” Tardieu and Clara­belle Tardieu held each oth­er and wept yes­ter­day, as they were re­unit­ed af­ter one month apart fol­low­ing their trau­mat­ic kid­nap­ping in ear­ly De­cem­ber.

Much like her hus­band’s re­lease, which took place in the ear­ly hours of De­cem­ber 17, 2025, Clara­belle was re­leased around 3 am yes­ter­day.

Guardian Me­dia was told she was tak­en to a ven­dor’s shed, just be­fore the Look­out, along the North Coast Road, and in­struct­ed to re­main there while a call was made to the au­thor­i­ties in­form­ing them of her where­abouts.

Of­fi­cers from the An­ti Kid­nap­ping Unit (AKU) and the North­ern North Gang Unit, led by Sgt Cae­sar, were among the first to ar­rive on the scene, of­fer­ing words of com­fort and as­sur­ance to the fright­ened woman.

Tardieu (C) was found with her hands and feet bound, while her face was cov­ered but with no phys­i­cal in­juries.

While a ran­som was paid, se­nior of­fi­cials have re­fused to say ex­act­ly how much was hand­ed over for her safe re­lease.

An al­most $200,000 ran­som, com­pris­ing TT $150,000 and US$5,000, was re­port­ed­ly paid for Der­rick Tardieu’s re­lease.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der yes­ter­day praised the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) for en­sur­ing the vic­tim was safe­ly re­turned to her fam­i­ly, and for mak­ing good on its promise to dou­ble down on crime-fight­ing ef­forts.

“We are all hap­py that she has been re­turned to her fam­i­ly safe­ly,” Alexan­der said.

He com­mend­ed all law en­force­ment agen­cies, “for the role they would have played to­geth­er with as­sis­tance from our re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al al­lies.”

He added, “We look for­ward to the com­mis­sion­er and his team con­tin­u­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion with the sole in­tent to bring the per­pe­tra­tors to jus­tice or oth­er­wise.”

Alexan­der con­firmed Clara­belle had been tak­en to seek med­ical at­ten­tion im­me­di­ate­ly up­on be­ing tak­en in­to pro­tec­tive cus­tody.

A se­nior po­lice of­fi­cial told Guardian Me­dia, “Her vi­tals were sta­ble and she was in good health when she was res­cued. A lit­tle mal­nour­ished as ex­pect­ed, but oth­er­wise un­harmed.”

Al­though no one has as yet been ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the kid­nap­ping, of­fi­cials said now that both vic­tims had been re­cov­ered, the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is ex­pect­ed to in­ten­si­fy, as they will be work­ing with “strate­gi­cal­ly placed for­eign al­lies” to de­ter­mine who was be­hind the kid­nap­ping.

Sev­er­al at­tempts to reach Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro proved fu­tile, but se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials agreed, “We are re­al­ly hap­py to get her back safe­ly.”

Clara­belle Tardieu was re­leased one month and a day af­ter she and her hus­band were tak­en by armed men from their home at Blanchette Bay, Monos Is­land, on De­cem­ber 6, 2025.

Al­though Tardieu (D), 70, was re­leased by their kid­nap­pers on De­cem­ber 17, af­ter a ran­som was paid by rel­a­tives, his 47-year-old wife had re­mained in the hands of their ab­duc­tors.