CTU charges two in major human trafficking bust

The Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) of the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty has filed 29 crim­i­nal charges against two Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als fol­low­ing “Op­er­a­tion Pur­ple Rain”—a sweep­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to hu­man traf­fick­ing in Rio Claro.

Last Tues­day, Ryan An­tho­ny Mark, 46, who faces 18 counts, and Sher­wyn Mar­lon Gue­var­ro, 44, who faces 11, were charged.

The charges in­clude of­fences un­der the Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act, the Chil­dren Act and the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act.

Al­le­ga­tions range from har­bour­ing vic­tims for ex­ploita­tion to sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion of mi­nors, as­sault, ad­min­is­ter­ing dan­ger­ous drugs to a child and mon­ey laun­der­ing un­der the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­gan af­ter in­tel­li­gence from In­ter­pol point­ed to a sus­pect­ed traf­fick­ing net­work in Rio Claro.

On March 7, CTU of­fi­cers ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant at a Fras­er Street prop­er­ty, where eleven Venezue­lan na­tion­als were found.

Four in­di­vid­u­als, in­clud­ing two mi­nors, were for­mal­ly iden­ti­fied as vic­tims of traf­fick­ing. Ev­i­dence un­cov­ered sug­gest­ed pro­longed ex­ploita­tion, con­fine­ment and abuse.

Mark was ini­tial­ly de­tained un­der the first Pre­ven­ta­tive De­ten­tion Or­der is­sued by the CTU un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2026.

Gue­var­ro was lat­er ar­rest­ed un­der a sim­i­lar or­der as au­thor­i­ties pur­sued leads to dis­man­tle what they be­lieved was a wider crim­i­nal net­work.

Both men ap­peared be­fore Mas­ter of the High Court Kim­i­tria Gray in the South Mag­is­te­r­i­al Dis­trict yes­ter­day.

Giv­en the grav­i­ty of the charges, bail was de­nied. The mat­ter re­mains be­fore the courts.

Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der praised the co­or­di­nat­ed ef­forts of the CTU, Po­lice Ser­vice, De­fence Force, Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners.

He em­pha­sised that the op­er­a­tion was not on­ly about law en­force­ment but al­so about restor­ing dig­ni­ty and safe­ty to vul­ner­a­ble vic­tims.

“The of­fi­cers in­volved demon­strat­ed the kind of pro­fes­sion­al­ism, co­or­di­na­tion and re­solve re­quired to con­front or­gan­ised crim­i­nal net­works,” Alexan­der said.

The CTU has pledged to con­tin­ue pur­su­ing in­ves­tiga­tive leads to en­sure ac­count­abil­i­ty for those en­gaged in traf­fick­ing and ex­ploita­tion.