Recently reinstated head of the Customs Anti-Narcotic Unit (CANU) James Singh had been removed by the former government due to the findings of a presidential inquiry, which concluded that he exercised egregiously flawed judgment and breached multiple laws when he released a vessel laden with suspected liquefied cocaine during a 2017 operation.
“The operation, from its inception, was bedeviled by numerous instances of flawed judgments and ultimately concluded with perhaps the most damning flaw of them all – a decision to prematurely release the crew and vessel. These flaws were made manifest from the information and intelligence phase through to the execution phase,” the report of the Commission of Inquiry (CoI), seen by the Stabroek News, states.
On February 16th, 2017, US and Trinidad Coast Guards intercepted a suspicious vessel approximately 70 nautical miles north of Paramaribo, Suriname, in international waters and 3,769 kilos of cocaine, which carried a street value of US$71 million.
The CoI was set up the next month “To inquire into the circumstances surrounding the entry into, the interception, detention and subsequent release of an unnamed private maritime vessel in the sea space surrounding the territory of Guyana on or between the 11th [and] 14th of February 2017”.
Then President David Granger himself had only learnt of the interception through a meeting with the then United States Ambassador, according to the report of the CoI, which was led by retired Guyana Defence Force Chief of Staff Bruce Lovell, and also comprised Assistant Commissioner of Police (Ret) Winston Cosbert, and Christine Bailey.
The United States’ Drug Enforcement Administration had provided a tip to CANU, which led to the original interception.
When Stabroek News contacted Singh this week for comment on the report, he said he would only speak if given clearance by his subject minister, Home Affairs Minister Robeson Benn.
Singh was reinstated earlier this week but there is yet to be a public announcement of the decision.
The report of the CoI, which was constituted by Granger on March 31, 2017, had not been made public by the former administration, which ultimately decided to remove Singh just a year after renewing his contract.
According to the report, the Commis-sion conducted in-camera hearings and heard testimonies from 21 witnesses from April 6, 2017 to May 29, 2017. Those giving evidence included the Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan, the Director of the National Anti-Narcotics Agency (Designate) Michael Atherly, Singh and other CANU Officers, the Commanding Officer of the Coast Guard and other Coast Guard ranks, the Chief Executive of the Guyana Energy Agency Mahender Sharma, a civilian ship captain, and a Guyana Police Force member.
Despite the role of the DEA, which tipped off Guyanese authorities and played an active role in the search of the vessel, the CoI did not ask or attempted to interview its agents or the then US Ambassador due to the belief that they would have invoked their diplomatic immunity.
The DEA was nonetheless praised for its role as it had tracked the vessel and kept in contact with Singh. “The DEA’s involvement was from the intelligence gathering stages, which eventually led to the launch of the operation. Head (of) CANU [Singh], on learning of the target vessel’s departure, informed the DEA so that they could pass this information to an international task force in the Caribbean comprising US, UK and French naval vessels. The DEA subsequently informed Head (of) CANU that the target vessel was seen returning to Guyana’s waters. At Port Charity, the DEA observed the search of the target vessel and also conducted interviews of the crew. The US Coast Guard were involved in tracking the vessel and eventually intercepting, interdicting, and in concert with CANU, executing a board and search operation of the target vessel, and escorting the vessel for a short distance,” it said.
But the report also pointed out that the US conducted operations in Guyana’s sea space without the requisite written or verbal authorisation, as stipulated in the Maritime Drug Trafficking (Suppression) Act. “This breach was further compounded when they accepted CANU’s invitation to board and search the target vessel,” the report said.
Operations
The report noted that only Singh approved the operations although he know that “there was the involvement of two law enforcement agencies from a foreign state, the USA.” It added, “He did not see it necessary to seek approval of any superior authority in Guyana. This is due in part to the fact that he has had full and unfettered authority in the past to execute similar such operations.”
Based on its findings, the CoI concluded that Singh’s conduct demonstrated “egregiously flawed judgment” in several instances during the operation. Singh was chided for his lack of communications with both the overarching head of his agency and the Minister and President. “The information provided by Head (of) CANU to the Minister of Public Security was untimely and woefully inadequate… additionally, Head (of) CANU only briefed the Minister about his reason for releasing the target vessel after he had done so,” it added.
According to the report, Singh obtained information that a blue low-profile vessel was departing Guyana on the evening of Wednesday, February 1, 2017 into Thursday morning for West Africa with some 1200 to 1400 kilogrammes of cocaine. However, it said he only shared this information with Ramjattan three days later and via text
Singh was subsequently informed by the DEA sometime around February 8 – 9 that the departed target vessel was sighted returning to Guyana, which prompted him to launch an operation to interdict the vessel.
His actions began on February 10, when he made arrangements with a private vessel owner to have his ranks use its services for the operation.
The CoI questioned Singh’s decision to use the private vessel, owned by Pritipaul Singh Investments (PSI), to undertake official CANU duty when he could have used army resources, which are always at his disposal, and which he had to eventually revert to because the crew of the PSI vessel reported mechanical problems.
The report said valuable time was lost to first return the private vessel and crew to shore and restart operations. Two days more would pass as the malfunctioning boat was making its way back to Georgetown, when Singh again was informed by the DEA, on February 12th, that the vessel had entered Guyanese waters and was last reported in the New Amsterdam area, traveling on a bearing that would take it along the Northeast Coast to the Waini area.
It noted that he then sought assistance from the GDF Coast Guard and Air Services Ltd (ASL). He resorted to the army’s air corps after ASL could not provide the requested assistance and a team of three departed Camp Ayanganna by helicopter for Pomeroon at around 5:15pm. They were collected from Friendship, Pomeroon by a Coast Guard Metal Shark vessel and proceeded to intercept the target vessel. The search for the target vessel commenced from 7:30pm on Sunday, February 12 and during the search six different coordinates were provided.
Two and a half hours into the search, it was interrupted after receipt of the third coordinate because the Coast Guard vessel needed to be refueled at Charity, the report stated.
Throughout, the report noted, the search was hampered by poor communication. “The radio and one of the GPS units for the Coast Guard vessel were inoperable while for CANU their satellite phone also remained inoperable. The net result was a resort to cellular phone communication, which tended to be erratic,” it added.
The local search party would recommence duties at around 6am on Monday February 13th but by this time the US Coast Guard had already intercepted the suspected vessel during the evening of the 12th and was waiting to have it escorted by Guyanese lawmen here for searching.
More problems would ensue for the locals as they ran into a mudflat and were delayed after collecting the suspected traffickers. From the report, it seems that when the PSI vessel was repaired it had restarted the journey as it met up with the team at the Pomeroom River mouth. CANU personnel boarded the target vessel and headed to Farmer’s Wharf Charity, where they were expected to land at around 9.45am Tuesday February 14th.
“On boarding the target vessel, a crew of six was found, which consisted of one Guyanese and five Venezuelans. A preliminary search was carried out by the CANU Officers and two US Coast Guard ranks, where some 18 of 27 drums filled with fuel, three filled tanks, and a satellite phone along with another phone were discovered. Due to the rough seas and the defective state of the vessel, a thorough search could not have been done and the decision was taken to escort the vessel to Charity. The US Coast Guard vessel left the two vessels after being part of the escort for a short distance and en route to Charity, the target vessel ran aground on a mud flat due to steering problems, which further delayed the journey to Charity,” the report said.
Breaches
CANU commenced the search on the target vessel at Farmer’s Wharf but aborted it when they realised that the facility was too small and relocated to MA Basir wharf a short distance away. Before the search had commenced at Farmer’s Wharf, the GDF Coast Guard concluded their escort duties and departed the location. During the relocation from Farmers’ Wharf to MA Basir Wharf, the search party was joined by two DEA Officers, who were invited by Singh and flown to the Essequibo Coast.
DEA Officers, along with a CANU rank, interviewed the crew members while CANU ranks conducted a manual search of the vessel and did a field test on the fuel.
The GEA officers, in a “happenstance” way the report said, saw the vessel coming in and stayed for the process but when they learned the vessel was intercepted in the Region One area, and on instructions from their supervisor, opted not to test the fuel or play any role in the operation.
“During this entire process, CANU discovered that the boat was unregistered and the Captain was unlicensed. They also took photographs of the crew and target vessel. No cocaine was found during the search and (the) Head CANU subsequently took the decision to release the vessel and its crew,” the report said.
The decision to release the vessel rested solely on the discretionary judgement made by Singh, who the CoI reported as saying that he determined that after consultations with the DEA and his ranks on the ground that he would release the crew and vessel on a number of reasons. “No narcotics or trace of narcotics were found. (b) There was no evidence of illegality. (c) The crew did not commit any immigration offences because the vessel and crew were detained in territorial waters and brought ashore by CANU. (d) He wanted to deceive the crew into believing the interdiction was for fuel importation violations and therefore provide CANU with the opportunity to continue monitoring them in the hope there would be another drug shipment operation. (e) After consultations with the CEO of GEA, and in recognition that the Region One area is regarded as a so called “free trade zone” for fuel, the crew could not have been charged for fuel smuggling,” Singh reasoned, according to the report.
However, the CoI pointed out that several laws were breached during the operation.
“CANU’s use of a commercial civilian vessel, MV Hampton Roads, to execute a law enforcement mission is in direct breach of the Maritime Drug Trafficking (Suppression) Act. Additionally, by unauthorisedly giving permission to the US Coast Guard ranks for boarding and searching of the vessel, also meant they aided the breach of the said law. The vessel was not licensed to transport fuel and this was a breach of the GEA Act. The vessel was unregistered and the captain was unlicensed, and both constituted breaches of the Shipping Act. The five Venezuelans did not have work permits and neither did they present themselves to an Immigration Officer, both of which breached the Immigration Act,” the report noted.
It also said that the ownership of the vessel still remains contestable as the CANU Officers admitted that no documentation establishing this was produced to them. Singh alone had ascribed ownership to one person while a crew member indicated during his interview with the DEA that ownership was by a different individual.
As a result, the CoI concluded that when looked at holistically, Singh’s actions climaxed with the release of the target vessel that possibly contained liquefied cocaine. It did not pronounce definitively on the presence of the narcotic as it said it could have only been authenticated, or not, had comprehensive testing been done at a forensic laboratory. However, an expert witness indicated that transporting liquefied cocaine from countries that have bans on certain chemical precursors to countries where no such bans exist for production into solid rock cocaine, such as Guyana, is the preferred modus operandi of traffickers. “Given the foregoing, the Commission is wedded to the belief there was a strong probability that Head CANU released a vessel containing liquefied cocaine,” the report said.
“Viewed from any perspective, this is patently a clear case of gross dereliction of duty, which brings into sharp focus the urgent need for a review of Head (of) CANU’s suitability for continued tenure,” it also said.
