-race car driver Nazim Gafoor in custody, Stephen Vieira, others sought
Following a bust of over 84 kilogrames of cocaine on Friday at Zeelugt in dressed lumber, the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) yesterday said it had arrested race car driver Nazim Gafoor and was looking for well-known biker, Stephen Vieira among others.
It added that it has a truck driver and porters in custody and will soon seek wanted bulletins for Vieira and others in the bust which has a street value of $550m.
In a statement last night, CANU did not say why Nazim Gafoor was in custody.
CANU said that Vieira is listed on the shipping documents as a representative for the shipper, Naraine Lall. The other two men wanted are Lall himself and Tazim Gafoor.
CANU said that its investigations so far reveal that that Lall is out of the jurisdiction. The agency’s search for Vieira has proven futile.
The counter narcotics agency, through the statement last night informed that the drug was found in in hollowed lumber bound for United States, at the Lot 227 Zeelugt, East Bank Essequibo premises of Akeem Mohamed.
The lumber, pallets of 1×6 boards, was laden in a truck which was parked at the said residence and contained the concealed drugs in cavities in the wood. “The said search revealed cocaine found in random boards scattered among genuine boards in each pallet, each of the compromised boards had a dug out cavity with the vaccum sealed plastic packets containing cocaine pasted therein,” the release said.
“Discovered was a total of 84.986 kilograms of cocaine equalling a landed US street value in excess of 550 Million Guyana Dollars,” it added.
CANU said that its investigations, up to last evening, revealed that the truck was hired to pick up and transport the lumber from Naraine Lall’s Sawmill at Lookout, East Bank Essequibo to a wharf at Georgetown.
It is not Tazim Gafoor’s first brush with the law as he has been before the court charged for his role in another cocaine matter.
The 43-year-old man, of Lot 39 Menzies Street, Windsor Forest, WCD, was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice, last September following the unearthing of over 9 kilogrames of cocaine.
Timber has been one of the vehicles used frequently by drug traffickers over the years.
