Four rescued, man held in human trafficking probe in Rio Claro

Four Venezue­lan na­tion­als, in­clud­ing two mi­nors, were res­cued from a sus­pect­ed hu­man traf­fick­ing op­er­a­tion in Rio Claro, while a busi­ness­man was ar­rest­ed and de­tained un­der a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der is­sued un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2026.

The Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) said the op­er­a­tion, dubbed Op­er­a­tion Pur­ple Ryain, took place on Sat­ur­day 07 March, 2026.

Act­ing on in­tel­li­gence from IN­TER­POL, CTU of­fi­cers car­ried out weeks of sur­veil­lance at a premis­es along Fras­er Street be­fore ex­e­cut­ing a search war­rant.

Dur­ing the ex­er­cise, Ryan Mark, 42, was held and lat­er de­tained un­der the or­der.

Po­lice said 11 in­di­vid­u­als were found at the lo­ca­tion. Four were iden­ti­fied as vic­tims of traf­fick­ing: a 15-year-old Venezue­lan girl, a 17-year-old Venezue­lan girl, a 27-year-old Venezue­lan woman, and a 30-year-old Venezue­lan woman, who is the moth­er of the 15-year-old.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors re­port­ed signs of pro­longed abuse, in­clud­ing vis­i­ble in­juries and brand­ing. Ini­tial in­for­ma­tion in­di­cates some vic­tims may have been con­fined and ex­ploit­ed at the lo­ca­tion for more than two years.

Two Venezue­lan women re­main at the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre as per­sons of in­ter­est. Four oth­ers, in­clud­ing one Venezue­lan man and three Venezue­lan women, were hand­ed over to Im­mi­gra­tion En­force­ment.

The vic­tims are re­ceiv­ing med­ical and psy­choso­cial sup­port un­der the CTU’s vic­tim care frame­work.

The op­er­a­tion in­volved sup­port from the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force and the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing, with charges un­der the Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act ex­pect­ed.

The de­vel­op­ment comes af­ter 54 peo­ple were de­tained by po­lice on Sat­ur­day night when of­fi­cers from the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit and the Crime Sup­pres­sion Unit con­duct­ed a raid at a house along Mar­shall Trace, Munroe Road in Cunu­pia.

Po­lice said the in­di­vid­u­als, in­clud­ing a large num­ber of for­eign na­tion­als, were held in con­nec­tion with sus­pect­ed pros­ti­tu­tion ac­tiv­i­ties at the prop­er­ty.

Res­i­dents of Mar­shall Trace claimed that parts of Cunu­pia and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties have be­come a haven for un­doc­u­ment­ed mi­grants who use the area to hide and en­gage in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing pros­ti­tu­tion.

“Hu­man traf­fick­ing is or­gan­ised crime. End the ex­ploita­tion.”

Mem­bers of the pub­lic can re­port sus­pect­ed cas­es to the CTU via its hot­line or What­sApp line. 800-4CTU (4288) or via the CTU What­sApp re­port­ing line at +868-702-0467.