The three persons arrested in connection with Thursday’s discovery of cocaine in a quantity of plywood, which was being prepared for shipment to the US, remain in custody.
Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) Head James Singh, when contacted yesterday, said that investigations into the discovery are ongoing.
The interception was made known via a Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) press release disseminated to the media several hours after the seizure had occurred.
Stabroek News was told that the cocaine was found at a sawmill on the Linden/Soesdyke Highway.
The weight of the drugs is said to be around 50 kilogrammes.
According to the release, at approximately 1.09pm, GRA’s Drug Enforcement and Goods Examination units along with the Port Control Unit (PCU) were in the process of examining a consignment of 5/8 inches of plywood destined for Florida, USA when on closer examination, “anomalies were detected within the consignment.”
GRA said further examination and testing revealed an unknown quantity of cocaine concealed between the approximately 320 sheets of plywood.
As a result CANU and the police were informed and officials from both agencies subsequently arrived on the scene to carry out further investigations.
GRA said the plywood’s consignor was listed as a business located on the Linden/Soesdyke Highway with the consignment’s prospective recipient being a hardware establishment in Florida. GRA’s officials had become even more suspicious of the contents of the consignment based on the suspicious behaviour displayed by the consignor’s representatives during the examination process.
