Twen­ty-five Venezue­lan na­tion­als were ar­rest­ed dur­ing a joint na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty op­er­a­tion at a pop­u­lar broth­el in South Trinidad over the week­end.

The ex­er­cise was car­ried out by of­fi­cers of the Im­mi­gra­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (South and North), An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit, Guard and Emer­gency Branch, and the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion. Po­lice said the teams moved in­to the Mara­bel­la es­tab­lish­ment around 1 am on Sat­ur­day fol­low­ing in­tel­li­gence re­ports and de­tained sev­er­al for­eign na­tion­als found in­side.

Those ar­rest­ed in­clud­ed 23 women and two men, all Venezue­lans. Po­lice checks re­vealed that they had en­tered the coun­try il­le­gal­ly.

The group was lat­er hand­ed over to the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion for fur­ther en­quiries.

The op­er­a­tion was co­or­di­nat­ed by Snr Supt Ma­haraj, Supt Pa­ri­man, ASP Bis­nath, and In­sp Phillip. Sgt Kater­son, Cpl Richard­son, and W/Cpl Parks su­per­vised the on-the-ground teams.

Po­lice said the ex­er­cise formed part of on­go­ing ini­tia­tives by the TTPS Im­mi­gra­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit of the CID/CRO and re­port­ed that the raid was com­plet­ed with­out in­ci­dent.