Cops make $117k cannabis bust in Gasparillo

A ma­jor cannabis cul­ti­va­tion op­er­a­tion was dis­man­tled in Gas­par­il­lo on Mon­day when po­lice seized mar­i­jua­na plants and processed drugs val­ued at more than $117,000.

The joint an­ti‑crime ex­er­cise, dubbed Op­er­a­tion Tri­pod, was car­ried out be­tween 3:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. by of­fi­cers of the Gas­par­il­lo Po­lice Sta­tion and per­son­nel from the Cen­tral Emer­gency Re­sponse Pa­trol (ERP) Unit. The op­er­a­tion was co­or­di­nat­ed by se­nior of­fi­cers in­clud­ing ACP Re­my, Snr. Supt. Hospedales, Supt. Bertie, W/Supt. Bridglal, ASP Ram­saran, ASP Chul­han, ASP Pacheco, In­sp. Alexan­der, and Sgt. Ramoo, with di­rect su­per­vi­sion by Cpl. Gar­cia and Cpl. Jaikaran.

Act­ing on in­tel­li­gence, of­fi­cers pro­ceed­ed to an aban­doned two‑storey house off Mayo Road, Mayo. Up­on ar­rival, they de­tect­ed a strong odour con­sis­tent with mar­i­jua­na em­a­nat­ing from the premis­es. A search re­vealed a so­phis­ti­cat­ed in­door cannabis cul­ti­va­tion set­up, com­plete with LED grow lights, a dry­ing tent, and nu­mer­ous plants at dif­fer­ent stages of growth.

The haul in­clud­ed 30 adult cannabis trees, 31 medi­um‑sized plants, 46 ju­ve­nile plants, 38 seedlings, two grow bags con­tain­ing small plants, two cro­cus bags filled with dried cannabis, and five sealed zip‑lock bags of processed mar­i­jua­na. Po­lice al­so seized cul­ti­va­tion equip­ment and fer­til­iz­ers be­lieved to have been used in the op­er­a­tion.

The to­tal es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of the seizure is $117,440. All ex­hibits were con­veyed to the Gas­par­il­lo Po­lice Sta­tion for pro­cess­ing.

Po­lice say the dis­cov­ery high­lights the grow­ing so­phis­ti­ca­tion of il­le­gal cannabis cul­ti­va­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go. “This was not a ca­su­al grow site. It was a struc­tured op­er­a­tion de­signed to pro­duce large quan­ti­ties of mar­i­jua­na,” a law en­force­ment source not­ed.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions re­main on­go­ing as of­fi­cers work to iden­ti­fy those re­spon­si­ble for the il­lic­it farm. Au­thor­i­ties have re­it­er­at­ed their com­mit­ment to dis­man­tling drug op­er­a­tions across the coun­try, stress­ing that such seizures are crit­i­cal in re­duc­ing the sup­ply of il­le­gal nar­cotics and curb­ing re­lat­ed crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

The TTPS has en­cour­aged mem­bers of the pub­lic to con­tin­ue shar­ing in­tel­li­gence that can as­sist in re­mov­ing drugs and firearms from com­mu­ni­ties.