Coast Guard stops speedboat with 252 packets of weed heading to Erin

Two men were ar­rest­ed and a firearm along with a large quan­ti­ty of cannabis were seized dur­ing sep­a­rate po­lice op­er­a­tions in the West­ern and South West­ern Di­vi­sions on Sun­day.

Po­lice say that be­tween 5 pm and 8 pm, a mul­ti-agency op­er­a­tion in­volv­ing the South West­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard re­sult­ed in the seizure of cannabis and the ar­rest of two men off the coast of Erin.

Of­fi­cers in­ter­cept­ed a white 20-foot ves­sel pow­ered by a 200-horse­pow­er Yama­ha en­gine af­ter re­ports of a ves­sel of in­ter­est head­ing to­ward Erin Beach.

A search of the ves­sel un­cov­ered five bales con­tain­ing 252 pack­ets of cannabis. The two oc­cu­pants, a 20-year-old fish­er­man of Chatham Beach Road South and a 26-year-old fish­er­man of Erin Beach Road, Erin, were ar­rest­ed on sus­pi­cion of pos­ses­sion of cannabis for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing.

The sus­pects and ves­sel were es­cort­ed to Ce­dros Port, where the ex­hibits were processed by of­fi­cers of the South West­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force. Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tors al­so doc­u­ment­ed the seizure.

Po­lice said both op­er­a­tions formed part of on­go­ing ef­forts un­der Op­er­a­tion R.E.S.O.L.U.T.E. Shield to tar­get il­le­gal firearms and nar­cotics across the coun­try.

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Thomp­son and Su­per­in­ten­dent Jag­ger­nath spear­head­ed the ex­er­cise, which was co­or­di­nat­ed by As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dents Cor­rie, Forbes, and Lewis, In­spec­tor Prescott, and Mid­ship­man J Dou­glas.

Ear­li­er in the day, po­lice went to Good Ses­sion Dri­ve, Pat­na Vil­lage, Diego Mar­tin be­tween 12:30 am and 3 am and act­ing on in­tel­li­gence, of­fi­cers of the West­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force searched be­neath a tree and dis­cov­ered a Mi­ni In­gram firearm con­cealed in­side an old car door.

The weapon was fit­ted with a mag­a­zine con­tain­ing nine rounds of 9mm am­mu­ni­tion.

The firearm and am­mu­ni­tion were tak­en to the St. James Po­lice Sta­tion. While search­es were con­duct­ed for a sus­pect, no one was found. In­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue. The ex­er­cise was sanc­tioned by Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Williams, spear­head­ed by In­spec­tor Grant, co­or­di­nat­ed by Act­ing Sergeant Hunte, and su­per­vised by Cor­po­ral Sa­ha­dath and Act­ing Cor­po­ral Pe­ters.