The drug trade and Guyana’s image

Oct 22, 2009 Editorial

The message should have gone out by now that everyone around the world associates Guyanese with drug dealings. Aircraft originating in Guyana and landing at any North American airport is subject to closer than usual scrutiny.
It is the same with the passengers and their luggage. Guyana has firmly established itself as a drug transshipment point and nothing can change that image in the immediate future especially since almost everyday people are arrested trying to smuggle drugs out of the country.
In the not too distant past there have been some major drug busts. More than 100 kilograms of cocaine was held in a port in the United Kingdom amidst lumber. There was cocaine in a large shipment of fish; cocaine in molasses; cocaine in coconut and in just about every conceivable thing that has been shipped out of Guyana.
And all this time there are people who try to smuggle the drug either among their luggage or on their person or in their bodies. The amounts in the latter cases are small but they represent the desperation of the people who seek to move the drug to North America or to Europe and make money which they believe would stand them in good stead.
At present there are about a dozen people out of Guyana in United States courts. They were nabbed with cocaine in their stomachs.
Some people never learn but they do expose loopholes in the security system in place at the main international airport. People are still being arrested in the North American ports and even at the regional ports of entry having succeeded in leaving Guyana with the drug.
Some people argue that those who slip through are allowed to slip through because they may escape prosecution in Guyana.
Indeed this is an indictment of the law enforcement and it is something that people in their right minds would refute because each day it has turned out that the drug smugglers are not afforded any special treatment. But some do and this cannot be disputed. They are more often than not remanded and sentenced to terms of imprisonment in keeping with the laws.
But the presence of the small smugglers must be examined. Some of those who are caught come from overseas so the news is that they are sent by people who have connections with the drug trade in Guyana. Invariably they are caught because anyone who pops into the country not having been here before will not spend three or four days and leave. That is enough to raise suspicion and it does.
The British woman who was held, and who wrote scathingly about conditions of the lock ups must have had some association with cocaine for traces to show up on her person when she attempted to leave for her homeland. That none was found suggests that she aborted her mission.
However, there are those who still attempt to pass through the airport with cocaine. This suggests some desperation on their part. We hear that they are single parents, that they are self-employed and that they were threatened to carry the drug. Surprisingly, the person who supplies the drug is never held although most certainly the police are provided with their names.
Recently, the Customs Anti Narcotics Unit began to hunt the supplier but never got very far because smart lawyers insist that the supplier was never arrested and that he cannot be convicted on the hearsay of someone else.
However, despite the numerous arrests people still try to smuggle drugs through the airport. It is as they all believe that they will not be caught, that getting caught is for the other person.
What it all boils down to is the intelligence of the smuggler. Surely these persons are not au fait with the technology in play. Those who are get suckered by the dealer who tells them that all is cleared at the airport. He does not say that they still have to clear the port at the destination.
But smugglers and dealers apart there is need for the authorities to identify the importers. They cannot be too many in number.

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The drug trade and Guyana’s image

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