For­mer na­tion­al foot­baller Kevin Moli­no and na­tion­al play­er Jo­evin Jones yes­ter­day have iden­ti­fied them­selves as the two lo­cal pro­fes­sion­al foot­ballers that were al­leged­ly caught in a Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) sting op­er­a­tion on Tues­day in con­nec­tion with the dis­cov­ery of a quan­ti­ty of drugs at a Boy Cato Road, St. He­le­na house and was re­port­ed­ly re­leased with­out charge. Both play­ers is­sued state­ments on their in­sta­gram han­dles on so­cial me­dia.

In a state­ment to the pub­lic, Moli­no wrote, “Over the past few days, there has been a lot of pub­lic dis­cus­sion sur­round­ing my de­ten­tion in con­nec­tion with a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion ear­li­er this week. I co­op­er­at­ed ful­ly with the au­thor­i­ties through­out the process and was re­leased with­out charge. This has un­der­stand­ably been a dif­fi­cult and emo­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence for me and for those clos­est to me, es­pe­cial­ly my chil­dren and fam­i­ly. I am deeply grate­ful for the sup­port, en­cour­age­ment and prayers I have re­ceived from team­mates, friends, sup­port­ers and mem­bers of the pub­lic.

Foot­ball has giv­en me op­por­tu­ni­ties and ex­pe­ri­ences that I have nev­er tak­en for grant­ed. From rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go as cap­tain of the na­tion­al team, to play­ing pro­fes­sion­al­ly abroad, and con­tin­u­ing my ca­reer to­day, I have al­ways tried to car­ry my­self with dis­ci­pline, hu­mil­i­ty and re­spect.

I un­der­stand that peo­ple will have ques­tions, but I re­spect­ful­ly ask that per­sons avoid spec­u­la­tion or rush­ing to judg­ment based on in­com­plete in­for­ma­tion.

At this time, my fo­cus re­mains on my fam­i­ly, my ca­reer and con­tin­u­ing to move for­ward pos­i­tive­ly. I ap­pre­ci­ate those who have stood by me and shown me kind­ness dur­ing this pe­ri­od.

Thank you for the sup­port and un­der­stand­ing. With love.”

Jones stat­ed: “I rec­og­nize there has been sig­nif­i­cant con­ver­sa­tion about my re­cent de­ten­tion. I un­der­stand that many peo­ple have ques­tions, and that’s nat­ur­al. I want to be com­plete­ly clear. I was not charged with any of­fence. I have nev­er been charged with any of­fence. I co­op­er­at­ed with the au­thor­i­ties through­out the en­tire process and was re­leased. I trust that peo­ple will al­low the truth - not so­cial me­dia head­lines or spec­u­la­tion - to be what they judge me by.

My fo­cus re­mains on my fam­i­ly, my ca­reer and the goals I’ve worked so hard to achieve. I’m grate­ful for the con­tin­ued sup­port, en­cour­age­ment and pos­i­tiv­i­ty. Thank you to every­one who has reached out, stood by me and shown me kind­ness.

It tru­ly means a lot. With ap­pre­ci­a­tion.”

Mean­while, the ex­er­cise, which po­lice sources say, fol­lowed the TTPS’ mon­i­tor­ing of a man known to po­lice, led the large cadre of of­fi­cers to the res­i­dence where they al­leged­ly dis­cov­ered a bag con­tain­ing 260 grammes of mar­i­jua­na.

The man, a vis­i­tor to the home of one of the re­leased men, claimed pos­ses­sion of the nar­cotics and was ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore the Ch­agua­nas Mag­is­trates Court, yes­ter­day.

The ex­er­cise was co­or­di­nat­ed by Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), Op­er­a­tions, Suzette Mar­tin, led by the head of the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tion’s Unit (SIU) Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Mervyn Ed­wards with sup­port from As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice (ASP) Ramharack.