Source: CARIBBEAN ME­DIA COR­PO­RA­TION

The Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) of the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Tues­day said a sus­pect has been ar­rest­ed and four vic­tims of hu­man traf­fick­ing res­cued dur­ing a co­or­di­nat­ed op­er­a­tion in Rio Claro, the largest town in south­east­ern Trinidad over the last week­end.

It said that it had ob­tained its first Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) un­der the State of Emer­gency (SoE) Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2026, re­sult­ing in the ar­rest of the sus­pect.

The op­er­a­tion, dubbed “Op­er­a­tion Pur­ple Rain,” fol­lowed in­tel­li­gence re­ceived through IN­TER­POL, and sev­er­al weeks of sur­veil­lance at a premis­es cul­mi­nat­ing with the ex­e­cu­tion of a search war­rant.

It said that dur­ing the ex­er­cise, Ryan Mark, 42, a Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­al and busi­ness­man, was ar­rest­ed and that a to­tal of 11 in­di­vid­u­als were dis­cov­ered at the lo­ca­tion. Fol­low­ing ini­tial screen­ing and in­ves­ti­ga­tion by CTU of­fi­cers, four in­di­vid­u­als were con­firmed as Vic­tims of Traf­fick­ing (VoTs).

“These in­clud­ed a 15-year-old Venezue­lan fe­male na­tion­al, a 17-year-old Venezue­lan fe­male na­tion­al, a 27-year-old Venezue­lan fe­male na­tion­al, and a 30-year-old Venezue­lan fe­male na­tion­al, who is the moth­er of the 15-year-old mi­nor,” the CTU said.

It said that pre­lim­i­nary ev­i­dence gath­ered at the premis­es in­di­cat­ed that the vic­tims had been sub­ject­ed to “pro­longed and se­vere ex­ploita­tion.

“Of­fi­cers ob­served clear signs of phys­i­cal abuse, in­clud­ing vis­i­ble marks of vi­o­lence and brand­ing on the bod­ies of vic­tims. Ini­tial in­for­ma­tion sug­gests that some of the vic­tims had been con­fined and ex­ploit­ed at the lo­ca­tion for more than two years”

The CTU said that two Venezue­lan fe­male na­tion­als re­main at the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre as per­sons of in­ter­est in the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion. It said four ad­di­tion­al in­di­vid­u­als found at the premis­es were trans­ferred to Im­mi­gra­tion En­force­ment, in­clud­ing one Venezue­lan male na­tion­al and three Venezue­lan fe­male na­tion­als.

The Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty said that the op­er­a­tion has re­sult­ed in the dis­rup­tion of a traf­fick­ing op­er­a­tion and the pro­tec­tion of vul­ner­a­ble vic­tims.

“In­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the mat­ter re­main on­go­ing, and charges un­der the Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act are im­mi­nent, with fur­ther charges ex­pect­ed as the in­ves­ti­ga­tion pro­gress­es. Mem­bers of the pub­lic are re­mind­ed that hu­man traf­fick­ing re­mains a se­ri­ous crime and are en­cour­aged to re­port sus­pect­ed cas­es to the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit,” the CTU added. —(CMC)