Trinidad: Two remaining prison escapees recaptured after 11 days on the run

(Trinidad Guardian) The two last es­capees—Olatun­gi Den­bow and Michael Find­lay—who had been on the run for 11 days af­ter break­ing out of the Gold­en Grove Re­mand Yard Prison in Arou­ca have been re­cap­tured.

Se­nior po­lice sources told Guardian Me­dia the men were caught in a house at Lp 52 Ralph Nar­ine Trace, South Oropouche.

Of­fi­cers from the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) and mem­bers of the T&T De­fence Force (TTDF) sur­round­ed a flat house in the area and lat­er cap­tured both men hid­ing in­side.

“We did not re­cov­er any firearms when we searched the house. There were a few oth­er things we re­trieved but can­not say more about that right now,” a se­nior source who was part of the SORT op­er­a­tion re­vealed.

Den­bow and Find­lay were dis­cov­ered miss­ing from the Gold­en Grove Re­mand Yard Prison in Arou­ca on May 15.

They had not on­ly made cameo ap­pear­ances on so­cial me­dia but they had al­so been able to stay one step ahead of law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties ac­cord­ing to well-placed sources.

On Fri­day po­lice and army locked down parts of Laven­tille and searched sev­er­al homes try­ing to lo­cate the fugi­tives af­ter the men had been spot­ted in that area. Sources said one of Den­bow’s rel­a­tives lives in that area and has a shop.

How­ev­er, the Sun­day Guardian was told that the men had been able to evade cap­ture since they had ob­tained a wire­less set which po­lice, oth­er arms of the law en­force­ment as well as se­cu­ri­ty firms use to com­mu­ni­cate.

Po­lice of­ten use the wire­less set that is con­tact­ed to the Com­mand Cen­tre and all po­lice sta­tions to re­port in­stances of crime, sight­ings of sus­pi­cious per­sons and any oth­er il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty to which they would then re­spond.

“Based on some in­for­ma­tion we got from with­in the prison a re­li­able source in­formed us that the men got a wire­less set about two days af­ter they es­caped so they could mon­i­tor the po­lice fre­quen­cy,” ex­plained the se­nior pris­ons source.

The in­for­ma­tion, Sun­day Guardian was told, came from some­one who was very close to the fugi­tives.

They be­lieve the wire­less was hand­ed over to the men by an ex-in­mate who was at­tached to a well-known se­cu­ri­ty firm.

The se­cu­ri­ty guard who is at­tached to a pub­lic health in­sti­tu­tion had not turned up for work for sev­er­al days.

The prison source al­so in­di­cat­ed that the po­lice were keep­ing track of a phone be­long­ing to a man in prison. The man was speak­ing with the fugi­tives reg­u­lar­ly.

The fugi­tives had been care­ful about the time frame in which they spoke on the phone, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for au­thor­i­ties to ze­ro in on their ex­act lo­ca­tion.

The es­capees

Den­bow and Find­lay along with six oth­er men es­caped from the Gold­en Grove Re­mand Yard Prison in Arou­ca on May 15. The six oth­er es­capees were held with­in 24 hours of their es­cape.

Den­bow and Find­lay were among five ar­rest­ed and charged for the Feb­ru­ary 2016 dou­ble mur­ders of con­struc­tion work­ers An­dre La Touche and Abi­o­la Noel.

Den­bow, in an al­leged state­ment re­leased on so­cial me­dia af­ter the prison break said he had been locked up three years due to an al­leged col­lab­o­ra­tion by cor­rupt po­lice and a pro­fes­sion­al paid state wit­ness.

A $50,000 re­ward was be­ing of­fered by Crime Stop­pers for in­for­ma­tion that would lead to the re­cap­ture of the two es­capees who po­lice de­scribed as armed and very dan­ger­ous.

In a video post­ed to so­cial me­dia on May 19, Find­ley and Den­bow ap­pealed to the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions to in­ves­ti­gate claims that they were framed for the mur­ders.

The prison es­capees claimed they were un­armed and will­ing to turn them­selves in once their claims were ad­dressed by the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties.

Young: Ku­dos to law en­force­ment for re­cap­tur­ing fugi­tives

In a me­dia re­lease, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young ap­plaud­ed the coun­try’s law en­force­ment and se­cu­ri­ty forces in re­cap­tur­ing Olatun­gi Den­bow and Michael Find­lay.

Young said “I would like to thank and com­mend the men and women of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), T&T De­fence Force (TTDF), T&T Prison Ser­vice and our In­tel­li­gence ser­vices for their com­mit­ment and team work in re­cap­tur­ing the last two es­caped pris­on­ers. The con­tin­ued mul­ti-agency ef­forts are bear­ing fruit in the dif­fi­cult and dan­ger­ous fight against crime.”