Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee said the number of cocaine and cannabis seizures last year is evidence that law enforcement officials are making a determined effort in the war on narco-trafficking.
Rohee said during a press conference last week that the police narcotics branch made 100 seizures of cocaine worth US$1.3 million and 400 seizures of cannabis worth US$2.9 million for the year 2011.
He said that additionally 94 fields of cannabis plants were destroyed by the police. For cocaine there were 56 convictions and cannabis 189 convictions, he noted.
“So you can see from these figures that progress is made,” Rohee stressed adding that there is also the continuing trend of swallowers “taking risks with their lives but being caught at the CJIA (airport) owing the alertness of the law enforcement representatives at the airport.”
Rohee said that besides the human swallowers, persons attempt to export cocaine in false bottoms and walls of suitcases, false shoe soles, fish, shrimp, juice, achar, religious kunds, false backs and bottoms of wheel chairs, cargo containers and so on.
He noted that the police are aware of the means through which these drugs are being exported. He noted too that there is a developing situation in neighbouring Brazil, where persons leave Guyana and travel to Brazil then seek to take drugs from there to Africa.
Turning his attention to the Customs Anti-Narcotic Unit (CANU), Rohee said that its record for last year shows that 30 seizures were made. The cocaine seized, he explained amounted to US$500 million and US$1 million. There were 38 arrests and 14 convictions.
