Five arrested as police seize gun and drugs

Five peo­ple were ar­rest­ed and a firearm, am­mu­ni­tion and quan­ti­ties of cannabis, co­caine, metham­phet­a­mine and ec­sta­sy were seized dur­ing a se­ries of po­lice ex­er­cis­es con­duct­ed across Trinidad on Fri­day.

Po­lice said of­fi­cers of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Task Force, Ar­eas North and South, car­ried out an Op­er­a­tion Steady Guard ex­er­cise in Cen­tral Di­vi­sion South be­tween 6 pm and 10 pm.

Act­ing on in­tel­li­gence, of­fi­cers went to an ad­dress along Rod­ney Road, Ch­agua­nas, where they in­formed a 38-year-old man of their in­ten­tion to con­duct a search.

Dur­ing the ex­er­cise, of­fi­cers al­leged­ly found and seized 516 grammes of cannabis, 12 grammes of co­caine, 44 ec­sta­sy pills and 12 grammes of metham­phet­a­mine.

The man was ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the seizure.

Po­lice al­so ar­rest­ed two oth­er men dur­ing the op­er­a­tion, a 67-year-old of Cashew Gar­dens and a 36-year-old of Ca­roni Sa­van­nah Road.

In a sep­a­rate ex­er­cise be­tween 10 am and 1 pm, mem­bers of the East­ern Di­vi­sion Gang In­tel­li­gence Unit con­duct­ed sur­veil­lance op­er­a­tions in the East­ern Di­vi­sion.

Of­fi­cers went to Fish­ing Pond Road, where they re­port­ed­ly saw a man known to them emerg­ing from a forest­ed area car­ry­ing a shot­gun.

Po­lice said the of­fi­cers iden­ti­fied them­selves and called out to the sus­pect, who dropped the firearm and fled in­to the for­est.

The sus­pect es­caped, but of­fi­cers re­cov­ered a shot­gun and five rounds of am­mu­ni­tion dur­ing a search of the area.

Mean­while, of­fi­cers of the Port of Spain Di­vi­sion car­ried out house search­es in Bel­mont, Besson Street, Cen­tral Port of Spain and Wood­brook at about 4 pm.

Po­lice searched six hous­es and ar­rest­ed two men.

A 34-year-old Aranguez man was ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with shoot­ing en­quiries, while a 34-year-old Bel­mont man was held in re­la­tion to al­leged gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties and shoot­ing en­quiries.

Of­fi­cers al­so seized 700 grammes of cannabis dur­ing the ex­er­cise in Aranguez.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the in­ci­dents are con­tin­u­ing.