Three detained as Counter Trafficking Unit cracks alleged trafficking ring

Three peo­ple, in­clud­ing a mem­ber of the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force, have been de­tained un­der Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) as the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) dis­man­tled an al­leged hu­man traf­fick­ing net­work dur­ing a mul­ti-agency op­er­a­tion span­ning Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty said Op­er­a­tion Ice­berg, con­duct­ed be­tween Ju­ly 22 and 25, was one of the CTU's largest in­tel­li­gence-led ex­er­cis­es to date. It re­sult­ed in the ex­e­cu­tion of three PDOs un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2026, the pro­tec­tion of vul­ner­a­ble vic­tims and the CTU's first ma­jor en­force­ment op­er­a­tion in To­ba­go.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­istry, the op­er­a­tion fol­lowed sev­er­al months of in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing, sur­veil­lance and op­er­a­tional plan­ning by the CTU and part­ner agen­cies. In­ves­ti­ga­tors al­lege the net­work was re­spon­si­ble for re­cruit­ing, har­bour­ing, trans­port­ing and ex­ploit­ing vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple for com­mer­cial sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion.

The first phase of the op­er­a­tion took place in Trinidad on Wednes­day, when of­fi­cers ar­rest­ed 41-year-old Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force mem­ber Ti­tus Du Bois at Long Cir­cu­lar Road, St James. He was de­tained un­der a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der pend­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to his al­leged in­volve­ment in a hu­man traf­fick­ing net­work, of­fences re­lat­ing to traf­fick­ing in chil­dren and the sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion of a mi­nor over an ap­prox­i­mate six-month pe­ri­od.

Of­fi­cers al­so ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant at his Morne Co­co Road, Pe­tit Val­ley home.

The op­er­a­tion then shift­ed to To­ba­go, where of­fi­cers ar­rest­ed two more peo­ple al­leged­ly linked to the same net­work.

On Fri­day, of­fi­cers ar­rest­ed 26-year-old Venezue­lan na­tion­al Fran­cis Car­oli­na Ren­gel Oje­da in Scar­bor­ough. She was de­tained un­der a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der as in­ves­ti­ga­tors al­leged she fa­cil­i­tat­ed the sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion of a mi­nor in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

On Sat­ur­day, of­fi­cers in­ter­cept­ed and ar­rest­ed 38-year-old Da­mon Domon­ic Charles in Sig­nal Hill. He was al­so de­tained un­der a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der while in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue in­to al­leged of­fences re­lat­ing to traf­fick­ing in chil­dren and the sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion of a mi­nor.

A search war­rant was ex­e­cut­ed at Charles' Aqua­ma­rine Dri­ve, Sig­nal Hill res­i­dence, where of­fi­cers en­coun­tered three Venezue­lan women, aged be­tween 20 and 23. The min­istry said the women were screened and found to be on or­ders of su­per­vi­sion.

Of­fi­cers al­so con­duct­ed an ex­er­cise at Chill Out Bar along Mil­ford Road, To­ba­go, where they found five Latin Amer­i­can women aged be­tween 22 and 44. All five were tak­en to the Shir­van Road Po­lice Sta­tion for pro­cess­ing by Im­mi­gra­tion En­force­ment.

Fol­low­ing im­mi­gra­tion and traf­fick­ing-re­lat­ed screen­ing, two of the women were re­leased af­ter au­thor­i­ties de­ter­mined they had the re­quired im­mi­gra­tion sta­tus.

Pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­di­cate that a 17-year-old Venezue­lan girl was al­leged­ly lured to Trinidad with what ap­peared to be a le­git­i­mate job of­fer be­fore be­ing sex­u­al­ly ex­ploit­ed.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors fur­ther al­lege that af­ter be­liev­ing she had es­caped her or­deal and would be giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­build her life in To­ba­go be­fore re­turn­ing home, the ex­ploita­tion con­tin­ued.

The min­istry not­ed that Op­er­a­tion Ice­berg co­in­cides with Trinidad and To­ba­go's ob­ser­vance of World Day Against Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons on Ju­ly 30 un­der the theme, Trapped Be­hind the Scam.

The ex­er­cise in­volved the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit, the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch, the of­fices of the Deputy Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice for Op­er­a­tions and Sup­port and In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force, Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion, Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion, Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency, the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go and oth­er agen­cies.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der praised the of­fi­cers in­volved and said the Gov­ern­ment re­mained com­mit­ted to dis­man­tling crim­i­nal net­works in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing.

"Op­er­a­tion Ice­berg demon­strates that hu­man traf­fick­ing is not sim­ply a so­cial is­sue, it is or­ga­nized crime, and it will be treat­ed as such. This op­er­a­tion re­flects months of in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing, plan­ning and col­lab­o­ra­tion among our law en­force­ment and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies. I com­mend every of­fi­cer who played a role in bring­ing this in­ves­ti­ga­tion to this stage. The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains ded­i­cat­ed in its com­mit­ment to iden­ti­fy­ing vic­tims, hold­ing traf­fick­ers ac­count­able and dis­man­tling the crim­i­nal net­works that seek to prof­it from the ex­ploita­tion of vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple," Alexan­der said.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing, and the min­istry said charges un­der the Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act are ex­pect­ed as en­quiries progress.

The Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit urged mem­bers of the pub­lic to re­main vig­i­lant, warn­ing that traf­fick­ing of­ten be­gins with de­cep­tion through fraud­u­lent job of­fers, false promis­es of em­ploy­ment, on­line re­cruit­ment and oth­er mis­lead­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties.

It en­cour­aged any­one with in­for­ma­tion on sus­pect­ed hu­man traf­fick­ing to con­tact its toll-free hot­line at 800-4288 or its What­sApp re­port­ing line at 702-0467.