Officers taking part in the jungle-training phase of the Regional Security System’s Basic Course 1 destroyed 347,170 mature marijuana plants in a raid in the La Soufrière mountains of St Vincent earlier that month.[1] The same raid accounted for 3,141,000 marijuana seedlings, 325 dried marijuana plants and 57 huts, and left 56 tarpaulins seized along with the cannabis.[1] Officers also seized 510 pounds (about 231 kg) of compressed marijuana, according to the course officer’s report.[1]
Course officer Assistant Superintendent of Police Randy Connaught said officers hiked over the La Soufrière volcano from Richmond Beach to Georgetown on the last day of the jungle training and conducted 47 field searches.[1] The Vincentian reported that the 47 searches were carried out over a three-day period in the final week of the course.[2] One person described as an illegal immigrant was arrested during the jungle training; neither account says what became of him.[1] Connaught delivered the course report on Friday 22 July 2016 at a ceremony at the Old Montrose Police Station in Kingstown.[2]
The course began in Barbados from 3 May to 1 July and continued in St Vincent from 3 to 22 July 2016.[1] The participants were police officers from Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, the Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis and St Vincent and the Grenadines.[1] Thirty-two of the 33 participants completed the training, while one was returned to his unit because of injury.[1] Connaught said the course was meant to prepare officers to work in paramilitary units and alongside military personnel during Regional Security System operations and exercises.[1] When he became Commissioner of Police, Michael Charles advised the graduates to use their training as a stepping stone in their upward mobility in their respective forces.[1]