Police probe illegal quarrying in Sangre Grande

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro led a tar­get­ed op­er­a­tion on Wednes­day in re­sponse to re­ports of il­le­gal quar­ry­ing and min­ing in the San­gre Grande, Va­len­cia, and Manuel Con­go re­gions.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) con­firmed that the op­er­a­tion aimed to as­sess the sit­u­a­tion in the af­fect­ed ar­eas. Of­fi­cers con­duct­ed ob­ser­va­tions to de­ter­mine the scale and im­pact of the ac­tiv­i­ties, which have raised con­cerns re­gard­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal and in­fra­struc­tur­al dam­age.

The il­le­gal op­er­a­tions have al­so dis­rupt­ed ser­vices at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) wa­ter treat­ment plant.

The TTPS has launched in­ves­ti­ga­tions to de­ter­mine the ex­tent of any crim­i­nal con­duct con­nect­ed to the sites. The po­lice are work­ing to col­lect ev­i­dence, iden­ti­fy those in­volved, and as­sess the dam­age caused.

Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro stat­ed that the TTPS will con­tin­ue to fo­cus on pro­tect­ing na­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture and pre­serv­ing the en­vi­ron­ment through en­force­ment and in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions.

The TTPS has urged mem­bers of the pub­lic to re­port any in­for­ma­tion that could as­sist in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. The po­lice will main­tain a pres­ence in the af­fect­ed re­gions as in­quiries con­tin­ue.

The Com­mis­sion­er af­firmed that il­le­gal min­ing and quar­ry­ing op­er­a­tions will be treat­ed as se­ri­ous breach­es of the law and that the TTPS will col­lab­o­rate with rel­e­vant agen­cies to bring any of­fend­ers to jus­tice.

The TTPS has re­it­er­at­ed its com­mit­ment to en­forc­ing the law and en­sur­ing the safe­ty and sta­bil­i­ty of es­sen­tial ser­vices and pub­lic re­sources.