$193.5m cocaine haul found hidden in backhoe tyres

Po­lice seized 416.5 kilo­grammes of co­caine with an es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of $193.5 mil­lion dur­ing an in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tion in Long­denville.

The op­er­a­tion be­gan at 3:40 am on Wednes­day and end­ed at 3:30 am to­day in the Long­denville Po­lice Dis­trict.

Po­lice said the op­er­a­tion was co­or­di­nat­ed by Act­ing As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Crim­i­nal Di­vi­sion, Ker­win Fran­cis, with op­er­a­tional lead­er­ship pro­vid­ed by Act­ing As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice St Clair.

En­quiries had cen­tred on the sus­pect­ed con­ceal­ment of il­le­gal firearms and nar­cotics at premis­es along Pokhor Road, Long­denville.

Act­ing un­der Sec­tion 12 of the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions 2026, of­fi­cers searched the res­i­dence, ware­house and sur­round­ing com­pound for firearms, nar­cotics and oth­er pro­hib­it­ed items.

Dur­ing the search, of­fi­cers found six large back­hoe tyres mount­ed on rims in­side the ware­house.

Po­lice said a clos­er ex­am­i­na­tion re­vealed rec­tan­gu­lar pack­ages con­cealed in­side four of the tyres.

A to­tal of 420 pack­ages were seized.

A 42-year-old busi­ness­man from the British Vir­gin Is­lands was ar­rest­ed on sus­pi­cion of of­fences con­nect­ed with the seizure, while two Saint Lu­cian na­tion­als, aged 38 and 37, were al­so de­tained.

Act­ing ASP St Clair sub­se­quent­ly vis­it­ed the scene, while po­lice of­fi­cers Naipaul and Frankbull from the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit processed the lo­ca­tion.

With as­sis­tance from Cus­toms and Ex­cise of­fi­cers Ram­saran, De Leon and James, the 420 pack­ages were weighed and record­ed as hav­ing a com­bined weight of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 416.5 kilo­grammes.

The co­caine has an es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of $193,522,560.

The seized items were tak­en to the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit in Port of Spain, while the three de­tained peo­ple were tak­en to the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion pend­ing fur­ther en­quiries.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.