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A co­or­di­nat­ed mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion led to the dra­mat­ic res­cue of a kid­nap­ping vic­tim late Wednes­day night, with Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge com­mend­ing of­fi­cers for what he de­scribed as a “swift, time­ly and clin­i­cal­ly co­or­di­nat­ed” re­sponse.

Ac­cord­ing to a me­dia re­lease, Tara Po­li­ah was ab­duct­ed short­ly af­ter sun­down. Act­ing on in­tel­li­gence, mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard, sup­port­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment, in­ter­cept­ed a ves­sel be­lieved to be head­ing to Venezuela with the vic­tim on­board.

Au­thor­i­ties con­firmed that Po­li­ah was safe­ly res­cued dur­ing the op­er­a­tion. Sev­en for­eign na­tion­als and one Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­al were de­tained in con­nec­tion with the in­ci­dent.