Coast Guard records third vessel interception this week

KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Sev­er­al for­eign na­tion­als fled in­to a near­by for­est af­ter aban­don­ing a ves­sel dur­ing a Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard pur­suit off Chatham on Tues­day, mark­ing the third mar­itime in­ci­dent in­volv­ing the Coast Guard in three days.

The Coast Guard said of­fi­cers were pur­su­ing the ves­sel when it was beached and aban­doned by its oc­cu­pants.

Ac­cord­ing to a me­dia re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, sub­se­quent in­ves­ti­ga­tions de­ter­mined that sev­er­al for­eign na­tion­als fled in­to the sur­round­ing forest­ed area. A search of the area was con­duct­ed, but none of the in­di­vid­u­als were found.

Of­fi­cers lat­er searched the aban­doned ves­sel and dis­cov­ered as­sort­ed food items, cloth­ing and live­stock on board.

The Coast Guard did not dis­close how many for­eign na­tion­als fled, their na­tion­al­i­ty, the type of ves­sel in­volved or the type of live­stock re­cov­ered.

The Chatham op­er­a­tion fol­lows two oth­er Coast Guard op­er­a­tions this week.

On Mon­day, while con­duct­ing search­es for an over­turned ves­sel off Trinidad’s south coast, a Coast Guard pa­trol in­ter­cept­ed a pirogue trav­el­ling from Venezuela. A search of the ves­sel un­cov­ered 252 pack­ets of a green, plant-like sub­stance. The pirogue, its two oc­cu­pants and its con­tents were hand­ed over to of­fi­cers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice for fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Hours lat­er, on Tues­day, Coast Guard of­fi­cers in­ter­cept­ed an­oth­er pirogue in the vicin­i­ty of Monos Is­land dur­ing a rou­tine mar­itime pa­trol. Pre­lim­i­nary as­sess­ments in­di­cat­ed the ves­sel was car­ry­ing sev­en Venezue­lan na­tion­als—four adult men, one adult woman and two mi­nors. Of­fi­cers al­so found as­sort­ed food items and oth­er pro­vi­sions on board the ves­sel.

The Coast Guard said it re­mains com­mit­ted to work­ing close­ly with part­ner agen­cies to safe­guard Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mar­itime bor­ders, de­ter il­le­gal mar­itime ac­tiv­i­ty and sup­port ef­forts to com­bat transna­tion­al crime.