A container with rum which originated from Guyana was discovered in the Netherlands to also contain 1100 lbs of cocaine but CANU says checks before departure had revealed no contraband items.
The discovery is the latest major cocaine find in shipments originating in Guyana and will pile pressure on the authorities to provide answers amid concerns that lax procedures and corruption have weakened safeguards.
In a statement last night, the Customs Anti-Narcotic Unit (CANU) said that its preliminary findings concluded that the container was indeed loaded and shipped from Guyana.
“The current measures in place ensure that containers departing the country are scanned. In addition, a physical examination is done when required based on several parameters. The container in question was scanned by the relevant law enforcement agencies, prior to departure and there were no contraband items concealed among the documented cargo.
“After the container was scanned, it was transported to a city wharf where it was stored in a secure area awaiting departure. Prior to departure as per standard operations procedure, a physical check would have been done to ensure that both the line and custom seals were intact and there was no sign of tampering”.
CANU said that after departing Guyana, the container transited another Caribbean territory where it was offloaded and remained for a period of five days before it was loaded onto another vessel and shipped to the Netherlands where the discovery was made.
“The law enforcement authorities remain committed to working together to ensure that narcotics are not transhipped through our ports. Several initiatives have been put in place to prevent this from occurring along with the creation of several multi agency units tasked with implementing and enforcing the new security measures. CANU is also working with several local companies to assist in strengthening their security protocols at the various ports – air and sea, to ensure that their businesses are not used to facilitate the movement of narcotics and other contraband”, CANU said.
This year, the container scanner unit of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) had come under scrutiny for corruption after it was discovered that images of a container with cocaine had been erased. This investigation and several others have failed to result in charges, leading to lingering doubts about whether cocaine is still being packed into the containers here despite the various mechanisms in place.
In February this year, it was revealed that five GRA container scanning specialists were fired for misconduct.
The firings were confirmed by Commissioner General of GRA Godfrey Statia, who in an invited comment said that the staff were sent home after they were found culpable of collusion and sharing passwords.
In early November 2020, law enforcement officials in Belgium announced that they were probing the discovery of 11.5 tonnes of cocaine in a container of scrap metal shipped from Guyana.
The shipment, which has been described as “the largest overseas drug bust ever, worldwide,” was seized upon its arrival at the Port of Antwerp. It carried an estimated street value of 900 million Euros.
Investigators believe that the suspected shipper of the container, Marlon Primo, has crucial information that can aid in the probe. Primo has not been located
Sources had previously told this newspaper that the scanned images of the container were either deleted or altered.
However, after international help was sought, the authorities were able to retrieve the deleted images.
This newspaper was also previously informed that the GRA submitted a folder which contains thousands of images which were retrieved.
Last year end, Minister of Home Affairs Robeson Benn had told reporters that the authorities were “extremely” alarmed that the shipment passed through the surveillance system without being discovered.
He had said that the operation had to have been in the planning for months.
The Brussels Times had reported counter-narcotics prosecutors as saying that they tracked the transatlantic journey of the cocaine from Guyana following the dismantlement of a drug trafficking gang led by a former Belgian counter-narcotics chief, which revealed the existence of tight-knit links between criminal gangs and counter-narcotics and law enforcement officials.
This newspaper was informed that the shipment departed Guyana on September 25th, 2020 and was searched by Belgian authorities on October 27th, 2020.
In August last year, authorities in the German port city of Hamburg found over €300 million worth of cocaine in a cargo ship container from Guyana containing rice. The cocaine which weighed 1.5 tons was found in a freight container. It is believed that the drug was inserted in the Dominican Republic where the vessel stopped before the cargo was taken to Hamburg.
