Trinidad: Fourth suspect arrested in Pollonais kidnapping

(TRINIDAD GUARDIAN) Po­lice have de­tained a fourth sus­pect in con­nec­tion with the kid­nap­ping of Na­tal­ie Pol­lon­ais.

Speak­ing at the week­ly po­lice press brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain this morn­ing, pub­lic in­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer ASP Michael Jack­man re­vealed that in­ves­ti­ga­tors ar­rest­ed a civil­ian in South Trinidad.

The sus­pect now joins a busi­ness­man and two po­lice of­fi­cers who were ar­rest­ed fol­low­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s res­cue of Pol­lon­ais on Mon­day night.

Pol­lon­ais, 49, of Palmiste, is the wife of Ja­son Pol­lon­ais, a di­rec­tor of the South Oropouche-based In­land and Off­shore Con­trac­tors Ltd (IO­CL)

Last Thurs­day she dis­ap­peared af­ter vis­it­ing the Cen­tral Ath­let­ic Club gym and some stores at C3 Cen­tre, San Fer­nan­do.

CCTV footage showed she left in her BMW 5308 hy­brid sedan around 11.30 am. Her hus­band re­port­ed her miss­ing when she did not re­turn home.

On Thurs­day night, San Fer­nan­do CID and South­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force found her car aban­doned in the park­ing lot of an apart­ment build­ing at Cy­press Hills, Union Hall. Al­so on that night, her kid­nap­pers con­tact­ed her fam­i­ly and de­mand­ed a US$300,000 ran­som for her re­turn. The kid­nap­pers al­lowed her to speak to her hus­band as proof she was alive. How­ev­er, they hung up when the is­sue of the cur­ren­cy of the ran­som arose.

On Mon­day night, mem­bers of the Or­gan­ised Crime and In­tel­li­gence Unit (OCIU) and An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit (AKU) con­duct­ed sur­veil­lance on a white Nis­san AD Wag­on that went to a ho­tel in Ca­roni and left min­utes lat­er. The wag­on was in­ter­cept­ed sev­er­al min­utes lat­er along the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way in San Juan, near the Courts Mega­s­tore and Pol­lon­ais was res­cued. The dri­ver of the car was de­tained and two po­lice of­fi­cers from the South­ern Di­vi­sion were de­tained soon af­ter.

CCTV footage ob­tained from C3 Cen­tre had al­so shown two men wear­ing tac­ti­cal po­lice uni­forms en­ter­ing a white Nis­san AD Wag­on re­sem­bling the one she was res­cued from.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.