A 43-year-old Venezue­lan woman and a 32-year-old Trinida­di­an man have been ar­rest­ed as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue in­to the al­leged traf­fick­ing and sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion of a 15-year-old Venezue­lan girl.

The ar­rests were made dur­ing a co­or­di­nat­ed op­er­a­tion in Point Fortin in the ear­ly hours of yes­ter­day by the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) and sev­er­al part­ner agen­cies.

Three oth­er Venezue­lan women, aged 19, 28 and 38, were found at the premis­es and screened by CTU of­fi­cers. How­ev­er, the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty said none was iden­ti­fied as a vic­tim of hu­man traf­fick­ing. The women were sub­se­quent­ly hand­ed over to the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion’s En­force­ment Unit for fur­ther pro­cess­ing.

The ex­er­cise, dubbed Op­er­a­tion KEY-UN-LUX, was part of an on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to an al­leged child traf­fick­ing net­work op­er­at­ing in South and Cen­tral Trinidad.

The probe was launched af­ter 34-year-old Keon James, of St He­le­na, was charged on Oc­to­ber 2 with sex­u­al in­ter­course with a fe­male with­out her con­sent and har­bour­ing a per­son for the pur­pose of sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion.

The charges were laid un­der the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act and the Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act.

In a re­lease on the op­er­a­tion, Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der warned that law en­force­ment agen­cies would con­tin­ue to pur­sue those in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing and ex­ploita­tion.

The op­er­a­tion in­volved per­son­nel from the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit and Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch, the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty, and the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion’s En­force­ment Unit.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.