TTPS: Radar system leads to 171 million Caroni Swamp drug seizure

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice has re­port­ed its first ma­jor suc­cess us­ing its new­ly in­stalled radar sys­tem, re­cov­er­ing more than $171 mil­lion in mar­i­jua­na dur­ing an op­er­a­tion in the Ca­roni Swamp.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTPS, the radar sys­tem, which was re­cent­ly com­mis­sioned to strength­en na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, gen­er­at­ed in­tel­li­gence that prompt­ed a co­or­di­nat­ed re­sponse led by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, along with Deputy Com­mis­sion­ers Natasha George and Suzette Mar­tin.

Spe­cialised units, in­clud­ing the Mul­ti-Op­tion Po­lice Sec­tion of the Spe­cial Branch, the Coastal and Air Sup­port Unit, the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit and oth­er in­tel­li­gence arms, were mo­bilised. Guid­ed by the in­tel­li­gence, of­fi­cers jour­neyed overnight in­to the Ca­roni Swamp man­grove where they re­cov­ered a stashed ves­sel car­ry­ing il­le­gal car­go.

The ves­sel was lat­er tak­en to the He­li­port in Ch­aguara­mas on 11th De­cem­ber for pro­cess­ing by SIU and CSI.

Po­lice said the nar­cotics, iden­ti­fied as 1,560 kilo­grammes of “creepy mar­i­jua­na”, car­ried an es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of $171,205,320. No ar­rests were made and in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing as the TTPS con­tin­ues its in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven ef­forts to dis­man­tle nar­cotics net­works and strength­en bor­der se­cu­ri­ty.

Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro praised both the radar sys­tem and the co­or­di­nat­ed po­lice re­sponse, say­ing the TTPS re­mains res­olute in pro­tect­ing the coun­try from il­le­gal drugs.