The Guyana-registered vessel from which over US$11 million of gold was spectacularly carted off by thieves last November in Curaçao, remains docked on the island and the crew is now in witness protection because of their testimony in a case that may ensnare senior officials.
The gold that was stolen is believed to have come from Guyana, but local authorities say they have not been able to verify this. Moreover, local authorities have not established contact with the Guyanese crew of the MV Summer Bliss who would have been able to give a ‘chapter and verse’ account of the shipment and its seizure by masked men on November 30, 2012.
Stabroek News was told by a source on the Dutch island that several of the crewmen continue to live on the island and that police could not give information about them because of the sensitivity of the case and the fact they were crucial to the prosecutors’ case against locals there. Back in December 2012 seven persons ‒ one from Bonaire, three from Venezuela and three from Curaçao ‒ were arrested and detained for extended periods by order of the court pending investigations. One of them was a Curaçao jeweller who had only purchased the gold.
Attorneys for the Curaçao locals say that they too are not privy to any details about the crew of the vessel, and that the men are pivotal in not only revealing the origin of the gold but the identity of the thieves who stole the bars.
Police there would not release the names of the crew members, since they said the investigation was a sensitive one and that the crewmen were never suspects and could leave the island whenever they chose.
Last week Police Press officer Reggie Huggins told Stabroek News that the police are now unavailable to give comment on the matter and directed questions to Prosecutor Norman Sephros.
From the inception, observers had pointed out that the crew members were pivotal to the investigation into the origin of the gold but the government here seemed uninterested in gaining access to them.
Although a team was sent to the Dutch island by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) to conduct investigations into whether the gold originated from Guyana, no new information was forthcoming from that visit.
On January 24 Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment Robert Persaud told Stabroek News that the report of the GGMC officers provided no new insight and that the team was not able to find the Guyanese crew members. The matter was now in the hands of local law enforcement authorities, he said.
This newspaper was reliably informed that while the Summer Bliss, has been moved from its original berth in Willemstad, it remained anchored at another location in the same dock.
Efforts to obtain a photo of the vessel however, proved futile. While customs authorities on the island said that the vessel was in the port they said it was not possible to enter the pier without clearance, and the photographer was turned away.
The Curaçao police told Stabroek News that they were not sure if the boat had now been confiscated as the matter of marine docking regulations and breaches was not handled by that department.
An official explained that a charge was imposed on the vessel for each day it remained docked at the pier. Until that payment was made, the vessel would not be given clearance to leave. To date no one has shown up to claim ownership of the vessel.
There had been earlier speculation that the gold might have been taken to Suriname and mixed with the precious metal from that country and then exported purportedly as having originated from Suriname.
But Suriname officials have on a number of occasions stated that they were not interested in the investigations as no one from that country had claimed the gold was theirs.
A Surinamese police official last week reiterated that as far as they were concerned the case is closed from their end. He said that the issue of gold smuggling was not one that his country has an issue with since their taxes and royalties were very low.
A crew member who gave his name as Raymond Emmanuel had reportedly told the Associated Press that the crew left Guyana on November 26, bound for Curaçao with the gold.
