Defence Force plays key role in rescue of kidnapped businesswoman

The Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force says it played an in­stru­men­tal role in the res­cue of 73‑year‑old busi­ness­woman Tara Po­li­ah, who was ab­duct­ed from her San Juan home and freed at sea less than 24 hours lat­er.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro had con­firmed that Po­li­ah was tak­en by armed sus­pects around 7.30 pm while she was in the garage of her res­i­dence. Four men forced her in­to a white Nis­san wag­on be­fore flee­ing, trig­ger­ing what Gue­var­ro de­scribed as a “ma­jor in­ter‑agency re­sponse” in­volv­ing mul­ti­ple units of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

As part of the op­er­a­tion, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard in­ter­cept­ed the kid­nap­pers af­ter they at­tempt­ed to trans­port Po­li­ah by sea, lead­ing to her safe res­cue. Sev­en sus­pects, in­clud­ing six Venezue­lan na­tion­als and one Trinida­di­an, were ar­rest­ed.

In a me­dia state­ment, the De­fence Force said its in­volve­ment along­side the Coast Guard and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment demon­strat­ed its rapid re­sponse ca­pa­bil­i­ty, op­er­a­tional readi­ness, and in­ter‑unit co­or­di­na­tion, call­ing its role in­stru­men­tal in pro­tect­ing cit­i­zens and main­tain­ing se­cu­ri­ty in the coun­try’s mar­itime do­main.

The De­fence Force reaf­firmed its com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ef­forts and work­ing close­ly with law en­force­ment part­ners to de­ter crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice con­tin­ues to con­duct fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the case.