The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) played a crit­i­cal role in the seizure of over US$25 mil­lion in co­caine and the ar­rest of three for­eign na­tion­als dur­ing a mar­itime op­er­a­tion off the coast of Por­tu­gal ear­li­er this month, ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the U.S. Em­bassy in Port of Spain.

The state­ment said the op­er­a­tion stemmed from months of col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween agents from the U.S. Drug En­force­ment Ad­min­is­tra­tion (DEA) based at the Em­bassy and of­fi­cers from the TTPS Vet­ted Unit, the Transna­tion­al Or­ga­nized Crime Unit (TOCU), and the Sea­port Co­op­er­a­tion Project (SEA­COP). The co­or­di­nat­ed ef­fort led to the seizure of 1,660 kilo­grammes of co­caine and the ar­rest of three crew mem­bers aboard a sail­boat that de­part­ed Trinidad in ear­ly June.

The ves­sel was in­ter­cept­ed by the Por­tuguese Navy and the Por­tuguese Ju­di­cial Po­lice on June 14 near the Azores Arch­i­pel­ago. The three men ar­rest­ed, all for­eign na­tion­als aged be­tween 43 and 51, are now in cus­tody.

The Em­bassy stat­ed that the seizure was part of Op­er­a­tion Vikings, a two-year transna­tion­al in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­volv­ing law en­force­ment agen­cies from Por­tu­gal, Spain, Den­mark, and the DEA. The op­er­a­tion is aimed at dis­man­tling in­ter­na­tion­al drug-traf­fick­ing net­works us­ing the Caribbean as a strate­gic tran­ship­ment route.

The TTPS’s Vet­ted Unit and TOCU, the re­lease said, pro­vid­ed “ex­ten­sive sup­port” that di­rect­ly con­tributed to the suc­cess­ful in­ter­dic­tion.

U.S. Chargé d’Af­faires Dr Jenifer Nei­d­hart de Or­tiz de­scribed the out­come as a “ma­jor win” for U.S.–T&T se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion. “I com­mend our lo­cal DEA agents, of­fi­cers from the TTPS Vet­ted Unit, and TOCU for their dili­gence and pro­fes­sion­al­ism,” she said. “The Unit­ed States will con­tin­ue to sup­port Trinidad and To­ba­go law en­force­ment agen­cies to ad­dress our com­mon chal­lenges through con­tin­u­ous co­op­er­a­tion, train­ing, and re­sources.”