50 illegal migrants held, businessman detained in anti-trafficking operations

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

Fifty il­le­gal mi­grants, in­clud­ing ten chil­dren, were de­tained dur­ing co­or­di­nat­ed po­lice op­er­a­tions over the week­end tar­get­ing sus­pect­ed hu­man traf­fick­ing and broth­el ac­tiv­i­ty in Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do.

A 75-year-old busi­ness­man who po­lice said pre­vi­ous­ly faced charges for lur­ing women in­to a trap be­fore sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ing them was al­so de­tained dur­ing the in­tel­li­gence-led ex­er­cise.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors sus­pect he owns two es­tab­lish­ments be­lieved to be op­er­at­ing as broth­els.

The op­er­a­tions, car­ried out un­der Op­er­a­tion R.E.S.O.L.U.T.E. Shield, in­volved of­fi­cers from sev­er­al spe­cialised units and the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion as po­lice in­ten­si­fied ef­forts to dis­man­tle net­works in­volved in il­le­gal im­mi­gra­tion, hu­man traf­fick­ing and re­lat­ed crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

Po­lice said the first ex­er­cise took place on Fri­day be­tween 5 am and 11 am in the Bel­mont and Cen­tral po­lice dis­tricts. Act­ing on in­tel­li­gence that a large num­ber of for­eign na­tion­als were oc­cu­py­ing sev­er­al premis­es, of­fi­cers con­duct­ed co­or­di­nat­ed raids along Up­per Char­lotte Street, Hen­ry Street and In­de­pen­dence Square in Port-of-Spain.

Po­lice said the op­er­a­tion re­sult­ed in the de­ten­tion of 36 peo­ple be­lieved to be in Trinidad and To­ba­go il­le­gal­ly. Those de­tained in­clud­ed 14 adult men, 12 adult women and ten chil­dren.

All were tak­en to the Im­mi­gra­tion En­force­ment Unit, where of­fi­cials be­gan pro­cess­ing them to de­ter­mine their im­mi­gra­tion sta­tus and whether fur­ther of­fences had been com­mit­ted.

Dur­ing the ex­er­cise, of­fi­cers al­so de­tained the 75-year-old res­i­dent of Pine Av­enue, Bayshore, West­moor­ings. Po­lice said the man, who has pre­vi­ous­ly been charged with rape, is as­sist­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tors as en­quiries con­tin­ue in­to the op­er­a­tion of two es­tab­lish­ments sus­pect­ed of func­tion­ing as broth­els.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors are al­so ex­am­in­ing whether the premis­es are linked to or­gan­ised hu­man traf­fick­ing or the sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion of vul­ner­a­ble mi­grants.

Less than 24 hours lat­er, of­fi­cers con­duct­ed a sec­ond op­er­a­tion at a bar on Bertrand Street, San Fer­nan­do, where an­oth­er 14 for­eign na­tion­als were found to be in the coun­try il­le­gal­ly.

The ex­er­cise was car­ried out be­tween 10 pm on Fri­day and 3 am yes­ter­day.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, of­fi­cers ob­served sev­er­al for­eign na­tion­als and lo­cal pa­trons on the sec­ond floor of the build­ing be­fore Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers con­duct­ed checks on the in­di­vid­u­als.

The in­spec­tions re­vealed that all 14 for­eign na­tion­als were in the coun­try il­le­gal­ly.

The group com­prised nine women and five men.

The lat­est ar­rests brought the to­tal num­ber of il­le­gal mi­grants de­tained dur­ing the week­end op­er­a­tions to 50.

The Port-of-Spain op­er­a­tion was spear­head­ed by Se­nior Supt Thom, Supt Baird, Supt Ramdeen, ASP Cadette and In­sp Dur­ga, and was di­rect­ly su­per­vised by Ag Cpl Chotoo.

The San Fer­nan­do ex­er­cise was led by Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions) Natasha George, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er Smith, Se­nior Supt Pa­ri­man and Supt De Mat­tos. It was su­per­vised by Se­nior Supt Pa­ri­man and Act­ing ASP Lazarus, with sup­port from of­fi­cers of the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit, the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Unit, the In­ter-Agency Task Force and the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion.