Illegal firearm and ammunition seized

Po­lice seized an il­le­gal as­sault ri­fle and am­mu­ni­tion dur­ing an an­ti-crime op­er­a­tion in the West­ern Di­vi­sion on Thurs­day.

Of­fi­cers at­tached to the West­ern Di­vi­sion Gang In­tel­li­gence Unit car­ried out the ex­er­cise be­tween 3.00 pm and 7.00 pm as part of on­go­ing ef­forts to tar­get gang ac­tiv­i­ty and the cir­cu­la­tion of il­le­gal weapons. The op­er­a­tion, known as Op­er­a­tion Tri­dent, was sanc­tioned by Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Williams and led by W/ASP Aguil­le­ria and In­spec­tor Grant. Co­or­di­na­tion and su­per­vi­sion were pro­vid­ed by Cor­po­rals Khan and Joseph.

Act­ing on in­tel­li­gence re­ceived, of­fi­cers pro­ceed­ed to Cher­ry Blos­som Dri­ve, Toma­to Trace, Diego Mar­tin, where a search was con­duct­ed at a res­i­dence. Dur­ing the search, of­fi­cers dis­cov­ered and seized an M16 A2 as­sault ri­fle, along with quan­ti­ties of as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion and ad­di­tion­al mag­a­zines.

Po­lice said the firearm and am­mu­ni­tion were found con­cealed be­neath a wood­en stor­age struc­ture on the premis­es. The items were re­moved and tak­en in­to po­lice cus­tody for fur­ther ex­am­i­na­tion and pro­cess­ing.

No in­for­ma­tion was re­leased on ar­rests in con­nec­tion with the seizure up to press time. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing as of­fi­cers seek to de­ter­mine how the firearm en­tered the coun­try and whether it is linked to any crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in the West­ern Di­vi­sion or else­where.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice said the op­er­a­tion forms part of its con­tin­ued fo­cus on in­tel­li­gence-led polic­ing and tar­get­ed ex­er­cis­es aimed at re­mov­ing il­le­gal firearms from com­mu­ni­ties. Po­lice not­ed that such op­er­a­tions are in­tend­ed to dis­rupt crim­i­nal net­works and re­duce the risk posed by high-pow­ered weapons.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic are be­ing en­cour­aged to con­tin­ue co­op­er­at­ing with law en­force­ment by shar­ing in­for­ma­tion that can as­sist in on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.