(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.