Trinidad businessman charged for major drugs, high-powered weapons find

Jerome Ol­livierre
Jerome Ol­livierre

(Trinidad Guardian) Heav­i­ly armed masked po­lice of­fi­cers from an elite unit blocked all ve­hic­u­lar traf­fic along Rail­way Road in Ch­agua­nas yes­ter­day, as they es­cort­ed Barataria busi­ness­man Jerome Ol­livierre, 28, to the Ch­agua­nas Mag­is­trates’ Court.

Olivierre, a fa­ther of three, was charged with pos­ses­sion of arms, am­mu­ni­tion and pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing. He was ar­rest­ed on Thurs­day night at Sixth Av­enue, Mal­ick, in his ve­hi­cle for pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing. He was al­so charged in con­nec­tion with the ma­jor drug, guns and am­mu­ni­tion haul that same night at Macaya Trace, off Munroe Road, Cunu­pia.

The Weapons

Ol­livierre was de­nied bail when he ap­peared be­fore Ch­agua­nas Mag­is­trate Adri­an Dhar­manie in the First Court.

In Barataria, Ol­liviere was al­leged­ly found with 20 pack­ets of mar­i­jua­na in his pos­ses­sion and in Cunu­pia with an ad­di­tion­al 134 pack­ages of mar­i­jua­na, nine high-pow­ered au­to­mat­ic-as­sault ri­fles and 16 mag­a­zines. The mar­i­jua­na was es­ti­mat­ed to have weighed 80 kilo­grammes and had a street val­ue of just over $2 mil­lion.

It took the po­lice just over 40 min­utes alone to present the pieces of ev­i­dence tak­en in­to the court­room at 10.20 am.

Ol­livierre’s at­tor­ney, John Heath, in his bail ap­pli­ca­tion, Dhar­manie his client had no pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions, no mat­ters pend­ing and was a “man of good char­ac­ter.” Heath said Ol­liviere was al­so will­ing to give up his pass­port and to re­port to the Barataria Po­lice Sta­tion.

Court pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Wayne Wait­he ob­ject­ed to the bail on the grounds that Ol­liviere was charged with se­ri­ous of­fences.

How­ev­er, Mag­is­trate Dhar­manie de­nied bail on three oth­er grounds, in­clud­ing that he was charged with se­ri­ous of­fences, the strength of the pros­e­cu­tion in the case and the quan­ti­ty and weight of the drugs.

Ol­livierre was re­mand­ed in cus­tody. His Barataria charge was trans­ferred to the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court for No­vem­ber 19 while his Ch­agua­nas mat­ter was ad­journed to De­cem­ber 11.