Police seize $193.5M in cocaine hidden inside backhoe tyres

Three for­eign­ers were ar­rest­ed af­ter po­lice seized ap­prox­i­mate­ly 416.5 kilo­grammes of co­caine, worth an es­ti­mat­ed $193.5 mil­lion, con­cealed in­side four back­hoe tyres at a Long­denville busi­ness­place.

The seizure, de­scribed by se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials as a ma­jor blow to the il­le­gal drug trade, formed part of con­tin­u­ing ef­forts by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to dis­man­tle the do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tion­al drug trade. The 24-hour raid, which be­gan on Wednes­day and end­ed yes­ter­day, re­sult­ed in the ar­rest of a 42-year-old busi­ness­man from the British Vir­gin Is­lands and two Saint Lu­cian na­tion­als, aged 38 and 37.

In a brief state­ment yes­ter­day, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Crim­i­nal Di­vi­sion, Ker­win Fran­cis, said, “This in­ves­ti­ga­tion is not an end, and through the work of our col­lab­o­ra­tion with re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners, there will be fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions to de­ter­mine what oth­er transna­tion­al el­e­ments may have been in­volved in the seizure.”