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Two US na­tion­als, Tevin Williams and Za­kiya Williams, were de­port­ed from Trinidad and To­ba­go on Au­gust 22 to face fed­er­al charges in Cal­i­for­nia and New York for drug traf­fick­ing and fail­ure to ap­pear in court.

The fugi­tives, who fled the Unit­ed States af­ter be­ing grant­ed pre-tri­al re­lease in 2023, were tracked down by lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al law en­force­ment af­ter months on the run. Act­ing on in­tel­li­gence re­ceived ear­li­er this year, of­fi­cers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) Transna­tion­al Or­gan­ised Crime Unit (TOCU) and the U.S. Drug En­force­ment Ad­min­is­tra­tion’s (DEA) Vet­ted Unit ar­rest­ed the pair in La Ro­maine on Au­gust 19.

The ar­rests fol­lowed a joint in­ves­ti­ga­tion launched in March af­ter in­for­ma­tion sur­faced that the Williamses had been hid­ing in Trinidad. A de­por­ta­tion or­der was is­sued by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty on Au­gust 21, clear­ing the way for their re­turn to U.S. au­thor­i­ties the fol­low­ing day.