Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro is sup­port­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in her stance that Gov­ern­ment will not be spend­ing tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars to as­sist four na­tion­als re­cent­ly de­tained in Venezuela.

Con­firm­ing yes­ter­day that the men, all of Las Cuevas, had been “caught in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties,” Gue­var­ro ques­tioned why al­ready scarce fi­nan­cial re­sources should be used to ren­der as­sis­tance to them.

The four T&T na­tion­als were held aboard a pirogue ap­prox­i­mate­ly 60 miles off Cabo Codera, Venezuela, be­tween Au­gust 13 and 14, with 3,000 litres of fu­el, three out­board en­gines and sev­er­al satel­lite phones. They were al­leged­ly in­ter­cept­ed en route to col­lect a ship­ment of guns and il­le­gal drugs des­tined for Trinidad, and which was be­ing fa­cil­i­tat­ed by gangs re­port­ed­ly op­er­at­ing along the North Coast.