More than 24 hours af­ter Der­rick “Stones” Tardieu was re­leased by kid­nap­pers along the North Coast of Trinidad af­ter a ran­som com­prised of both TT and US cur­ren­cy was paid, ne­go­ti­a­tions were said to be con­tin­u­ing to se­cure the safe re­lease of his wife Clara­belle Tardieu.

Guardian Me­dia learned that TT$150,000 and just over US$5,000 (ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$34,000) was paid to the ab­duc­tors; and led to Tardieu’s (D) re­lease around 1 am on De­cem­ber 17.

The 70-year-old busi­ness­man was re­port­ed­ly picked up by po­lice of­fi­cers from sev­er­al spe­cial­ist units, fol­low­ing his re­lease on Wednes­day.