With Curacao last week busting open the gold heist aboard a vessel in the island’s port, pressure is mounting on the authorities here to seek access to the Guyanese crew for answers as to the origin of the metal as the focus shifts to a large scale trader here as the likely prime figure behind the shipment.
Even as six persons remain in the custody of Curacao police for the daring US$11.5M heist of gold bars one month ago, an official of the miners association urged the Guyana Government to take a closer look at “big buyers and traders” to determine conclusively if the metal was smuggled from here.
“The amount of gold alone eliminates the small miners…it’s the top buyers/traders who buys from the small man, that middle man who stands most to gain from not selling to the gold board it is them that they (government) have to investigate” said Administrative Coordinator of the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA), Colin Sparman.
He told Stabroek News that the benefits accrued to small miners from selling to the Guyana Gold Board outweighs selling to middlemen since it acts as a record should the miner apply to the Guyana Revenue Authority for duty-free concessions on mining equipment. However sometimes because of logistics, the immediate need to get required items and for an extra dollar, he acknowledged that miners turn to buyers who are available.
“The gold board might be giving 300k per ounce but you have a man giving 310 or 315K and when a man is in Kaituma or Mahdia and need ration right away he will sell off, get his stuff right there rather than make a trip to town. It’s after he sells that gold to that man is where what happens to it comes into play because there is where the diversion is”, he said.
“Our miners know that we get concession and duty-free from government and before GRA gives that okay you have to get a letter of recommendation from the GGMC about performance of that miner and so on so the more you sell to the board it’s the better for you…we use our records to bargain with government and if they (government) believe that we are pilfering or we are scamps they won’t deal with us and we know that“, he added.
This newspaper was reliably informed that of the major buyers of gold in the interior there are Brazilians who partner with a prominent local buyer. One source feels that it is this partnership that yielded the 70 bars stolen in Curacao. The source added that it is for fear of the local owners of the bars that the crew of the vessel, `Summer Bliss’ does not want to return to Guyana. “We have information that these guys are scared for their lives and there is no one to guarantee their safe return.”
The crew of the vessel has still not departed Curacao. When questioned why, Curacao police spokesman Ronald Huggins told Stabroek News that the crewmembers were not being held by the police and he did not know why they have not yet left the island. The police there would not release the names of the crewmembers, since they stated that the investigation was a sensitive one. However, a crew member who gave his name as Raymond Emmanuel had reportedly told AP that the crew left Guyana on November 26, bound for Curacao. Observers note that the crew would be able to give chapter and verse on the provenance of the gold and it is they that the Guyana Government should formally be seeking access to for conclusive information.
GGMC
Stabroek News was told that following the visit by two staff members of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) to Curacao in relation to the heist, local investigators are coming to the conclusion that the stolen gold came from here and would have therefore been smuggled out.
However Commissioner of the GGMC Rickford Vieira has said that that his agency is still putting together a report on their visit to the Dutch Island. He denied that the team sent to Curacao had spoken to the boat crew, saying that persons on the Dutch island were not cooperative. “Our people are still working on the report. People in Curacao were not cooperating with our people. They never spoke with the crew members; all the information they got is on the robbery,” he said.
A GGMC source told Stabroek News that for information from Curacao to be detailed, precise and forthright, more has to be done by Guyana’s Foreign Ministry to interface with its counterpart entity on the Dutch Caribbean Island. “From an agency to the police nothing much can be yielded. The Curacao police don’t see our investigation as important because they are looking at it from a criminal standpoint of that country. Their main focus is on the robbery not on evasion of taxes and royalty or anything else for that matter”, the source said.
“If we really want to get to the bottom of this our government has to engage their government and explain the reason for us wanting to play a key role. This is yet to happen and with each passing day it seems also lost or that someone don’t want to know the genesis of this whole thing.”
Several Dutch news websites on Saturday reported that the 30 bars were recovered in the US but police in Curacao have declined to confirm whether this was indeed the case.
Police in Curacao on Thursday detained six suspects, including a woman, over the November 30 heist. Although seven persons were arrested after a raid on Thursday afternoon, one was later released after interrogation.
According to that country’s police policy, names of the arrested are not given until charges are laid, instead their initials are used as means of identifying them.
A statement from the Curacao police had said that one man, G.T.R, 43, was arrested at a jewellery store in Otrabanda (downtown Willemstad); another man, A.J.D.D., 46, who was born in the neighbouring Dutch island of Bonaire, was arrested at Santa Rosaweg; the woman, M.D.C.P.B., 45, and born in Venezuela, was arrested at a house in Boca Sam; two of the men, Venezuelans J.L.F.S., 44, and L.A.F.S, were arrested at a house in Mahuma; and two other men, natives R.R.P., 46, and S.P.A.E., 22, were arrested at Seru Loraweg. “After the interrogation the man S.P.A.E. was released while the other suspects were kept under arrest for more investigation,” the statement said.
It also noted that during the investigation, the police confiscated articles. It added that the customs also participated actively in the preliminary part of the investigation and that because the investigation has some international aspect to it, the Police Corps has had communication with the authorities from these countries.
The Curacao Chronicle had earlier identified Giovani Regales, a jeweller, as being among those arrested and said that two of the gold bars were found on his premises. It added that another media outlet reported that 30 of the gold bars were found in the US and that a “major organization” there was helping with the case.
The arrests come nearly a month after gunmen pretending to be police daringly stole 70 gold bars weighing 216 kilogrammes (476 pounds) from a fishing boat in Curacao. Curacao authorities have not said where the gold was being delivered, but one of the ship’s crew members said they were delivering the gold to an unidentified company on the island.
