The container, in which $700M in cocaine was found among logs when it arrived in Jamaica, was loaded and sealed the day before it left these shores.
Reliable sources told this newspaper that while the logs were cleared for shipping by the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) quite some time before the March 16 bust, it was only on March 11 that the logs were loaded into the container at the Caribbean Resources Ltd (CRL) establishment in Houston on the East Bank. The container was then taken to the John Fernandes wharf the same day and it left on March 12 for Jamaica. It is believed that the container may have been sealed for shipping on March 11 but sources indicated that there are no records to verify this since the Customs and Trade Administration (CTA) officer who should have sealed the container was absent when this was done. It is suspected that the cocaine would have been placed in the container at the time of the sealing.
Last week, this newspaper was told that the CTA officer from the Customs Boat House Unit was not present when the exporter and others sealed the container. Sources said the officer supplied two seals which the exporter placed on the container. Although the absent customs officer “breached all the customs regulations” with regard to the sealing of containers when he was a no-show at the sealing of the container, a month since the bust in Jamaica no action has been taken against him. The officer admitted not being present when the container was sealed, but sources fear that the “matter is going to be swept under the carpet” because there is “a lot of foot dragging on the issue.”
The Customs Boat House Unit–whose primary function is to oversee the sealing of containers–is short staffed and it has become habitual for officers to give seals to exporters. But whether or not this was the case with the cocaine container, sources said the officer is in serious trouble as the cocaine may have been placed in the container when he was conveniently absent.
Some are of the view that even if the officer was not charged, he should have been disciplined and face dismissal from his job. They have also pointed to the need to take action against the head of the Customs Boat House Unit. It was pointed out that if no investigation is being done into the practice of officers giving seals to exporters then it could be one that is sanctioned by the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA).
Jamaican authorities found 122.65 kilos of cocaine among logs in a container on the MV Vega Azurit. The cocaine was packed in five bags and concealed among the logs.
Although it has been more than a week since the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU), who took over the investigation from the GRA, completed its investigations, it is still awaiting advice on how to proceed from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). Three persons have been held by authorities here, including the exporter, and they have been released on bail pending charges. This newspaper was reliably informed that the investigators do not believe the men are the masterminds of the smuggling operation. It was hoped that the three would have given the investigators the information needed to arrest the mastermind/s but so far not such information has been forthcoming.
When questioned, the owner of Aroaima Forest Producers Association (AFPA), which was identified by the GFC as the company for which it cleared the logs in the container, revealed that he had allowed a Chinese national to use his permit to export timber to China. It was recently discovered that the shipment of the cocaine may be linked to the owner of a jewellery establishment and the shipper may have just been used as a front but investigators are getting no corroborating evidence.
Local forestry expert Dr Janette Bulkan has told this newspaper that AFPA might have breached forestry regulations by allowing someone else to use their permit. She said that she understands that the practice of shipping logs using the permit of a concession holder is a “normal” one in Guyana. However, she argued that the practice is illegal, while adding that “Malaysian and Chinese loggers and log traders have been doing this for years with the connivance of the GFC.”
“I challenged such illegalities through letters published by SN [Stabroek News] in 2006 and thereafter, and the GFC has failed to produce a single example of an approved transfer. Nor has the GFC published any documentation to that effect,” Dr Bulkan said.
Commissioner of the GFC James Singh has not responded to a query by this newspaper on the issue.
Meanwhile, two weeks after the GRA had announced that the container scanner would have been operational, it is still not up and running. The GRA had said all containers leaving Guyana will be subjected to inspection using the newly installed scanning equipment, but Stabroek News has been told that officials are now waiting on the US technician who had set up the scanner to return and rectify a problem. In the meantime, the scanner remains unguarded in the evening and sources pointed out that persons could have accessed it.
Earlier this month Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon revealed that there is an ongoing investigation to find out why the scanner was not working. He had said that when the manufacturer installed the scanner last year, it functioned but as soon as he “jumped on a plane and left” the scanner developed all sorts of problems and it “was a scanner that was not scanning.” He said the investigation would ascertain whether the non-functioning of the scanner was as a result of sabotage.
