Shane Su­perville and

Shas­tri Boodan

The seizure of 416.5 kilo­grams of co­caine, with an es­ti­mat­ed worth of $193.5 mil­lion, has raised se­ri­ous con­cern for Ch­agua­nas May­or Faaiq Mo­hammed and the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC).

The co­caine was seized dur­ing an in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tion along Pokhor Road, Long­denville, which al­so re­sult­ed in the ar­rest of a busi­ness­man from the British Vir­gin Is­lands and two St Lu­cians.

CCIC pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj said the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty had adopt­ed a “clear, un­com­pro­mis­ing ze­ro tol­er­ance stance” on crime in Ch­agua­nas and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties.

He said the seizure high­light­ed the grow­ing threat posed by or­gan­ised crim­i­nal net­works us­ing le­git­i­mate com­mer­cial prop­er­ties to fa­cil­i­tate the in­ter­na­tion­al drug trade.

Ma­haraj said the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty was con­cerned that drug traf­fick­ing could con­tribute to turf wars and oth­er vi­o­lent crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, putting in­no­cent res­i­dents, em­ploy­ees and busi­ness own­ers at risk.

He urged prop­er­ty own­ers and land­lords across Ch­agua­nas to con­duct prop­er back­ground checks be­fore rent­ing prop­er­ties or hand­ing over keys to prospec­tive ten­ants.

Mean­while, May­or Mo­hammed said he was trou­bled by the quan­ti­ty of il­le­gal drugs that could po­ten­tial­ly en­ter the coun­try.

“Drugs de­stroy com­mu­ni­ties. They bring vi­o­lence, gang ac­tiv­i­ty, rob­beries, traf­fick­ing, fi­nan­cial crime and the de­struc­tion of fam­i­lies and young lives,” Mo­hammed said.

He praised the po­lice and oth­er law en­force­ment of­fi­cers in­volved in the op­er­a­tion, de­scrib­ing it as a sig­nif­i­cant blow to the crim­i­nal net­works be­hind the il­le­gal drug trade.

Mo­hammed al­so com­mend­ed the Gov­ern­ment for pro­vid­ing law en­force­ment agen­cies with re­sources to tack­le or­gan­ised crime.

He said greater em­pha­sis must be placed on strength­en­ing the coun­try’s bor­ders, in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing and polic­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors probe ori­gin of co­caine ship­ment

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, ACP Ker­win Fran­cis of the Crim­i­nal Di­vi­sion con­firmed that the three men re­mained in po­lice cus­tody up to yes­ter­day, as in­ves­ti­ga­tors con­tin­ued en­quiries in­to the seizure.

Fran­cis said that as the probe con­tin­ued, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al law en­force­ment coun­ter­parts would be con­tact­ed to de­ter­mine whether there were any ad­di­tion­al “transna­tion­al el­e­ments” in­volved in the ar­rival of the drugs.

He added that the seizure was a tes­ta­ment to the ef­fec­tive­ness of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in com­bat­ing transna­tion­al drug net­works.

“It demon­strates that the TTPS re­mains res­olute in the fight against dan­ger­ous drugs and those el­e­ments who are hell­bent on ply­ing their trade both do­mes­ti­cal­ly and re­gion­al­ly.”

Sources said that while the con­fis­cat­ed drugs re­mained “firm­ly” in po­lice cus­tody as ev­i­den­tial ex­hibits, they would be sub­ject­ed to sci­en­tif­ic analy­sis to de­ter­mine their pu­ri­ty and con­cen­tra­tion as ef­forts are made to es­tab­lish their ori­gin.

Da­ta from the TTPS Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis (CA­PA) branch showed that the to­tal quan­ti­ty of co­caine seized in T&T dropped be­tween 2023 and 2024. A to­tal of 237.67 kilo­grams was seized in 2023, com­pared with 92 kilo­grams in 2024. How­ev­er, the amount seized in 2025 rose to 211.87 kilo­grams.