3-year-old Among Four Venezuelans Held In Car

Trinidad Guardian – A three-year-old child was among four Venezue­lans arrested in a car near the Los Iros beach on Tuesday night.

It is be­lieved that they made the jour­ney to Trinidad via boat and en­tered the coun­try il­le­gal­ly. Due to the dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion in their coun­try, which is starved for food, med­i­cine and work, thou­sands of Venezue­lans have been flee­ing to Trinidad il­le­gal­ly with the hope of mak­ing a bet­ter life for them­selves and their fam­i­lies.

Their ar­rest came less than 24 hours af­ter 11 for­eign­ers were ar­rest­ed with­in the same area fol­low­ing a video on so­cial me­dia of a group of peo­ple be­lieved to be en­ter­ing the coun­try il­le­gal­ly was seen jump­ing off a boat at a beach in Erin and quick­ly wad­ing through the sea to shore.

Some of them were hold­ing bags. The per­son record­ing the video claimed a child was among them. This prompt­ed act­ing Se­nior Supt Neville Adams and Supt Bas­deo of the South West­ern Di­vi­sion to launch an ex­er­cise on Tues­day morn­ing at the Los Iros Beach where of­fi­cers of the Erin Po­lice Sta­tion, searched a ho­tel.

The of­fi­cers ar­rest­ed sev­en men, rang­ing be­tween 31 and 55 years old, five of whom were Venezue­lans, a Guyanese and a Syr­i­an. The women, ages 18 to 49, in­clud­ed three Venezue­lans and one Syr­i­an. The ho­tel own­er was al­so held.

The T&T Guardian was told that the three-year-old boy will be placed in the care of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty while in­ves­ti­ga­tions are be­ing car­ried out.

The lat­est ar­rest took place dur­ing a po­lice ex­er­cise, led by Sgt Richard­son of the San­ta Flo­ra Po­lice Sta­tion. The po­lice said around 10 pm the of­fi­cers searched a Nis­san Almera which was parked near a bar, not far from the beach, in which two Trinida­di­ans and the four Venezue­lans were oc­cu­pants.

Po­lice in­quiries led the po­lice to be­lieve that the three Venezue­lan women, ages rang­ing from 22 to 41 years, and the child were in the coun­try il­le­gal­ly.

They along with two men from Pe­nal were all tak­en to the Erin Po­lice Sta­tion.

Up to late yes­ter­day, no charges were laid and in­quiries were con­tin­u­ing.