-Top Cop confirms
Police have finally confirmed that the vessel, from which 476 lbs of gold was stolen during a daring heist in Curacao last week is from Guyana as is its owner.
“Well, the boat is from Guyana, the owner is from Guyana, so we have to investigate and [are] doing something,” Police Commissioner Leroy Brumell told Stabroek News last evening.
There is no record of the registration of the vessel, ‘Summer Bliss,’ with the Guyana Maritime Administration (MARAD). And local officials, a senior police force source said, believe that the name of the vessel is not a registered one and that the vessel’s name was changed for its smuggling purposes. The crew of the vessel is Guyanese.
The police source explained that many vessels do not register with MARAD because they are stolen from other countries, especially Brazil and Venezuela, sold here at a fraction of their cost and repainted and disguised before being taken on to the seas again.
Sources say that suspicion has fallen on three companies here which have been known to smuggle gold via Suriname. With the gold in bars, sources say the operation points to bigger players in the industry.
The source opined that Curacao police are adamant that the gold shipment was legitimate as the required documentation and clearance for that territory were filled out but that this ignores the fact that it was likely smuggled from another country.
Brumell, meanwhile, did not say what role the Guyana Police Force will play in solving the biggest robbery in Curacao’s history and that country’s police Spokesperson Reggie Huggins also remained tightlipped, saying that to divulge information could compromise the investigation. When contacted yesterday, he informed that when ready the police will issue a press release on the matter.
The police source, however, told Stabroek News that Guyana is conducting two simultaneous investigations; one spearheaded by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment and the other by the police. The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment is to dispatch a team to Curacao to follow up the heist and it is expected to leave on Monday
President Donald Ramotar has said he is disturbed at the report of the heist as it suggests that Guyana is being robbed of revenue as a result of smuggling.
The Government Information Agency (GINA) said that Ramotar was speaking on Monday to reporters in what was his first response on the matter.
Ramotar said that some international help would probably have to be requested based on press reports that the authorities on Dutch-administered Curacao are insisting that the shipment was legal.
Last Friday, the vessel arrived in Curacao at 4 am and was attacked shortly after mooring. According to police reports, the robbers went to the port area in three different cars and guards let them inside the restricted area in the mistaken belief that they were customs officials. The men’s jackets had the word “police” in English but in Curacao the word would be written in Papiamento, one of the island’s three official languages, as “polis.”
News agency Amigoe reported that six men, carrying guns and wearing masks and hoodies along with the police jackets stormed the ship. At gunpoint, they pushed the 51-year-old captain as well as the three Guyanese crewmen onto the ground.
The perpetrators apparently knew their way around the ship and walked directly to the three metal boxes with the gold bars and they reportedly took only five minutes to remove them.