Seven bodies found in refrigeration unit at Central compound

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing af­ter sev­en hu­man ca­dav­ers were dis­cov­ered be­ing stored in a re­frig­er­a­tion unit at a com­pound in Cen­tral Trinidad on Thurs­day.

The ca­dav­ers were found dur­ing an in­spec­tion by of­fi­cers of the Mul­ti-Agency Task Force (MATF) and per­son­nel from the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA).

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, MATF of­fi­cers re­ceived a re­quest from the EMA on Wednes­day to vis­it a lo­ca­tion off the Uri­ah But­ler High­way, south of Courts and ad­ja­cent to Conex Readymix Ltd.

At about 10:40 a.m. on Thurs­day, MATF of­fi­cers and EMA per­son­nel went to the lo­ca­tion, where they met a man who iden­ti­fied him­self as the op­er­a­tor of an es­tab­lish­ment on the com­pound.

He was in­formed of the EMA re­port and an in­spec­tion of the premis­es was con­duct­ed.

Dur­ing the in­spec­tion, the team dis­cov­ered the sev­en hu­man ca­dav­ers in­side a re­frig­er­a­tion unit with­in a build­ing on the com­pound.

Po­lice said the man was asked to pro­vide doc­u­men­ta­tion iden­ti­fy­ing the de­ceased and show­ing the au­thor­i­ty un­der which the ca­dav­ers were be­ing kept at the lo­ca­tion.

How­ev­er, he was un­able to pro­duce the re­quest­ed doc­u­men­ta­tion at the time.

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Bhag­wan­deen of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion was con­tact­ed and an in­ves­ti­ga­tor and Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tors were as­signed to the mat­ter.

Su­per­in­ten­dent Per­sad of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Re­gion Two, was al­so con­tact­ed and a team was dis­patched to the lo­ca­tion.

Po­lice said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is fo­cused on es­tab­lish­ing the iden­ti­ties of the de­ceased, how the ca­dav­ers came to be at the lo­ca­tion and whether all le­gal and reg­u­la­to­ry re­quire­ments gov­ern­ing the pos­ses­sion, han­dling and stor­age of hu­man re­mains were be­ing ob­served.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors are con­tin­u­ing en­quiries to de­ter­mine whether any breach­es of law or ap­plic­a­ble reg­u­la­tions oc­curred.

Fur­ther in­for­ma­tion is ex­pect­ed as the in­ves­ti­ga­tion pro­gress­es.