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DRUG HAUL: A screen grab from a TTPS video posted on Facebook on December 11 following the $171 million drug bust in the Caroni Swamp. From left, are, Insp Ronny Rampallard, of the TTPS Coastal and Air Support Unit; Police Commissioner Allister Guevarro; and Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander. - Commissioner of Police Allister Guevarro has dismissed criticism over the lack of arrests in the massive $171 million "Colombian creepy" marijuana drug bust in the Caroni Swamp on December 11. In a media release on December 11, the police credited the recently installed US military-grade radar in Tobago for assisting in the bust.
Guevarro revealed the police seized a further 600 kilos of marijuana on South Central Road on December 11, bringing the total from the two busts to 2.2 tonnes. No one was arrested in either incidents.
At the launch of a Municipal Police Post in Port of Spain on December 12, Guevarro said given the resources at his disposal, he would not "leave my officers in the bush for two and three nights to get mosquito bite and dengue."
Guevarro said, "It is true that it does not paint a good picture that we are recovering two tonnes of marijuana in the space of 24 hours and there is nobody to answer for it. But the resources that are placed under my remit to treat with crime in TT is one that I must weigh and measure on a daily basis to see where they must reside. And I would be very hard pressed to leave my officers in the bush to wait or in the swamp to wait for someone to come back and collect their 1.5 tonnes of marijuana when persons would have heard a boat going up there with the police."
He believes the police presence had already spooked the people receiving the drugs.
"Wa yuh think? They go see the police going there with a boat. Hearing this boat coming from miles away, yuh ain't going and come back for the weed....Why must I leave my officers to do surveillance in the bush for two and three nights to get mosquito bite and dengue. The simplest thing is to take the marijuana and remove it and later destroy it."
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