Po­lice say they have made a sig­nif­i­cant win in the fight against white-col­lar crime, with a court-or­dered for­fei­ture of il­lic­it cash linked to hu­man traf­fick­ing and mon­ey laun­der­ing.

In a re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, the TTPS said the rul­ing fol­lows a years-long in­ves­ti­ga­tion that be­gan with a 2019 joint raid by the Port-of-Spain Task Force and the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) at a “Se­cret Sun­day” event on La­dy Chan­cel­lor Road, where of­fi­cers res­cued a Span­ish-speak­ing mi­nor. The child was im­me­di­ate­ly placed un­der the care of the Counter-Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) and the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit (CPU).

CTU of­fi­cers lat­er ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant at a Cunu­pia bar on No­vem­ber 25, 2019, un­cov­er­ing 33 Span­ish-speak­ing women. The bar’s man­ag­er, An­drew George, was ar­rest­ed.