Kidnapped businesswoman rescued; seven held

Po­lice have res­cued a 73-year-old busi­ness­woman less than 24 hours af­ter she was ab­duct­ed from her home, in what Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro de­scribed as a “ma­jor break­through” against cross-bor­der kid­nap­ping net­works.

In an au­dio state­ment is­sued this morn­ing, Gue­var­ro con­firmed that Tara Po­li­ah, of Samoa, was tak­en around 7.30 pm yes­ter­day while in the garage of her home.

He said four male sus­pects ap­proached Po­li­ah and forced her in­to a white Nis­san wag­on be­fore flee­ing the scene.

Po­lice im­me­di­ate­ly launched what the com­mis­sion­er de­scribed as a “ma­jor in­ter-agency re­sponse”, in­volv­ing the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol, Emer­gency Re­sponse Pa­trol, An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit and the North­east­ern Di­vi­sion. As the op­er­a­tion pro­gressed, the Coastal and Air Sup­port Unit and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard were al­so de­ployed.

Se­nior of­fi­cers in­volved in the op­er­a­tion in­clud­ed DCP In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions Natasha George, DCP Op­er­a­tions Suzette Mar­tin, ACP Crim­i­nal Di­vi­sion Richard Smith and Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of the CID An­der­son Par­ry­man.

Gue­var­ro said that around mid­night, the kid­nap­pers at­tempt­ed to trans­port Po­li­ah out of Trinidad and To­ba­go by sea.

“Around mid­night, the kid­nap­pers placed the vic­tim aboard a ves­sel in an at­tempt to take her to Venezuela, but this ves­sel was in­ter­cept­ed by mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard,” he said.

Sev­en sus­pects were ar­rest­ed, six Venezue­lan na­tion­als and one Trinida­di­an.

Po­li­ah was res­cued safe­ly and is said to be in good health.

The com­mis­sion­er said the op­er­a­tion re­flects on­go­ing in­tel­li­gence work tar­get­ing or­gan­ised crim­i­nal groups in­volved in cross-bor­der ac­tiv­i­ty.

“This op­er­a­tion rep­re­sents a ma­jor break­through in dis­man­tling an or­gan­ised crim­i­nal net­work who was hell-bent on car­ry­ing out cross-bor­der kid­nap­pings,” he said.

He added that the “speed, pre­ci­sion, and pro­fes­sion­al­ism” of the re­sponse demon­strat­ed the readi­ness of law en­force­ment agen­cies to re­spond to se­ri­ous threats.

Gue­var­ro al­so thanked mem­bers of the pub­lic who shared in­for­ma­tion dur­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, say­ing their co­op­er­a­tion con­tributed di­rect­ly to the out­come.

He urged cit­i­zens to re­main vig­i­lant, warn­ing that crim­i­nals of­ten ex­ploit fa­mil­iar­i­ty and ac­cess to homes and busi­ness­es.

“If you ob­serve un­usu­al be­hav­iour or have con­cerns, con­tact the po­lice im­me­di­ate­ly,” he said.

“The TTPS re­mains un­wa­ver­ing in its com­mit­ment to pro­tect and serve every com­mu­ni­ty across Trinidad and To­ba­go. We will con­tin­ue to pur­sue those who threat­en the safe­ty of our cit­i­zens with the full strength of our in­tel­li­gence, op­er­a­tional ca­pa­bil­i­ty, and in­ter­a­gency part­ner­ships.”