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Two days af­ter a loaded pis­tol was dis­cov­ered among the prison pop­u­la­tion at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP), Gold­en Grove Road, Arou­ca, in­ten­si­fied se­cu­ri­ty search­es were car­ried out at the Port-of-Spain Prison yes­ter­day.

A con­tin­gent of po­lice and prison of­fi­cers, in ri­ot gear with their faces cov­ered, were briefed by se­nior of­fi­cials ahead of walk­ing in­to the Fred­er­ick Street fa­cil­i­ty around 9.30 am.

Guardian Me­dia was told the search­es formed part of the se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus by prison of­fi­cials to lo­cate and con­fis­cate con­tra­band items be­ing smug­gled in­to the var­i­ous pris­ons over the past year.