TRINI PIRATES

“We come to your country to buy food to feed out starving families back home. Our homeland is in turmoil and there is no food in the stores. What we got was guns pointed at our face by masked men and a woman who came upon our boats in a vessel with the word CUSTOMS painted on it. They ordered us to ‘pass the bags’,” Adrian Lopez told Newsday.

The 11 Venezuelan nationals were in two pirogues (seven in one and four in the other) on their way to Trinidad to buy basic food items when they were attacked at 3.30 am. Lopez, 33, of Guiria was one of seven men aboard the pirogue ‘Santa Ana’. He said the masked men pointed guns and ordered the engines of the two pirogues to be switched off. “They told us to ‘pass the bags’ and they searched it and handed it back to us. They then left. It was only when the sun rose and we checked our bags that we realised all of the money we had, which we were going to use to buy food for our families...all of it was missing,” Lopez said.

“We go back home with no food, no toilet paper and with none of the money we left with. How you think the reception will be for us? What will we tell our loved ones who are waiting on us,” Lopez asked.

As Lopez, in broken English, explained to Newsday how the ordeal played out, he rose his hands to show how he surrendered when the pirates intercepted his boat. A female wholesale vendor who stood nearby as the Venezuelans were being interviewed at King’s Wharf in San Fernando, said visiting Venezuelans are her regular customers as she vouched that all they are interested in is food and personal items such as soap and toilet paper.

“When they come, they buy basic food items like rice, oil, flour and sugar. It is a shame that Trini bandits would seek to attack people who are coming here to buy food,” she said as she called on the Coast Guard to protect the Venezuelans.

The Venezuelans said they will report the incident to the police and Customs. Efforts by Newsday to reach the Comptroller of Customs as well as Venezuela’s Ambassador to TT Coromoto Godoy Calderon for comment yesterday, proved futile.