Amid an ongoing investigation into reported high levels of gold smuggling, Minister of Governance Raphael Trotman disclosed yesterday that a task force will be established to examine the issue as well as boost inter-agency cooperation.
Trotman told reporters at the weekly post-Cabinet press briefing, that earlier yesterday, an inter-agency meeting on gold smuggling was held. This meeting was supposed to be held about two weeks ago but took place for the first time yesterday.
He informed that representatives of the Special Organized Crime Unit (SOCU), the Guyana Rev-enue Authority (GRA), the Guyana Gold Board, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), and members of the State Assets Recovery Unit were present at the meeting and looked at various “arms or tentacles” of the gold smuggling problem particularly the “export end.”
According to the Minister, collaboration with foreign countries was discussed and it was later decided that a task force will be established “to ensure greater collaboration at all ends because GRA felt that it was in the dark with some information. SOCU is in the dark, and of course the Gold Board and GGMC.”
Trotman said the grouping will meet in another two weeks when efforts to refine the action plan will continue. He emphasised that over time, some information will be made available to the public as this issue is sensitive and involves billions of dollars.
“…Our gold [goes] as far as the Middle East. It goes to China. It goes to parts of Europe and there are big interests here and abroad that have their hands on the export. Not all of it is illegitimate,” he said. Previously, Trotman had told Stabroek News that out of recognition that gold smuggling has been rampant, the government has decided to make it top priority.
He said government is seeing gold going over the borders with Brazil and Suriname and some amounts are going up to the US.
The issue of gold smuggling was raised recently after it was revealed that during a four-month period, billions of dollars of gold was smuggled into the US. After being alerted, US authorities made contact with local authorities. Investi-gations are ongoing at both ends.
Trotman told reporters yesterday that the “infamous” Curacao gold heist came up for discussion at the meeting.
“We are trying to track that down and get a handle on it but I can safely say that we have had our first inter-agency meeting this morning [yesterday] and it was agreed that we will collaborate, work together and share with each other and of course with our international counterparts so it is an ongoing assignment,” he said.
In 2012, 476 pounds of gold which reportedly originated from Guyana, was stolen from a Guyanese fishing boat in Curacao. The gold was said to be worth US$11.5 million.
This was the biggest indication that there is large scale gold smuggling from Guyana.
News agency Amigoe had reported that six men carrying guns, wearing masks and hoodies along with 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 robbers knew their way around the ship as they walked directly to the three metal boxes with the gold bars and spent only five minutes removing them.
Following disclosures that the gold originated from Guyana, an investigation was done and a report was written.
When Stabroek News inquired yesterday, Trotman said that he is yet to see the report on the heist which was handed over to former president Donald Ramotar. He revealed that he had requested the report. “There has been an exchange of correspondences recently over the last ten or so days, so we are getting the report,” he said.
“That report has been missing for two years. To ask me to get it in a few hours is asking a bit too much. I would like to be able to get it in a few hours but it may take me some weeks because there seem to have been an effort to keep it buried so we have to go first and find it and then unearth it as best as we can,” he said.
Meanwhile, Trotman related that he is impressed with the work being done by SOCU. “I would like to sound praises and I believe that with the efforts of that unit, efforts of the Minister of State and his office and others, we will get to the bottom of this matter [gold smuggling].”
Asked specifically if he has made contact with counterparts in Brazil and Suriname where some of Guyana’s gold is known to be smuggled, Trotman said “not as yet but agencies have been in touch… I have not formally spoken to Brazilian and Surinamese counterparts because we are trying to get a handle on the various tentacles of the problem before we venture out because if you venture out without the specific information you can be embarrassed by not asking the right questions and we want to know what it is exactly that we are dealing with before we go elsewhere.”
SOCU head, Assistant Superintendent Sydney James had recently told Stabroek News that there is evidence of a large-scale network involving several locally-registered mining companies in the smuggling of gold through the country’s major ports. “Based on information gathered, we suspect a number of major networks/individuals are engaged in this practice… there are hundreds of people…some are well-established businesses licensed to export gold,” he had said.
According to James, this network involves hundreds of persons and the information circulating is that among those who are being linked to the probe are well-established businesses and persons in the mining sector. The US has already revoked the visas of some of the suspected smugglers.
Gold smugglers both inside and out of Guyana are on the government’s radar.
Head of the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) Patrick Harding has since distanced small miners from the gold smuggling saying that “big players” have hijacked the mining industry and are the ones behind the large-scale smuggling of gold.
