HOLD THE SURPRISE!

Mar 30, 2011 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Just after the big cocaine bust in Jamaica, said to have originated in Guyana, one top official indicated that the country would be surprised when they learn who the person behind the shipping was. That surprise is still being awaited.
Tongues were wagging awaiting the imminent disclosure. The surprise is however still to land. Perhaps it too has jumped ship and sailed away.
Guyana is no yet wiser as to who was behind the shipment. But sometimes it is better this way so as to avoid persons being wrongly fully implicated or suspected, especially when the drugs were seized in another country.
The cocaine was held in Jamaica, in a container which was imported from Guyana. This has led to the belief that the cocaine was shipped from Guyana. But was the cocaine packed with the logs in the container or was it loaded after the logs were packed? Those are the questions that are not going to be easy to answer and require in-depth investigative skills.
It is therefore best that no names are called to surprise the Guyanese people, until such time as a link can be established between those individuals and the drugs found in the container. The fact that the container may have been shipped by local persons does not mean that those persons are behind the drugs found in the container, and as such one has to be careful about casting aspersions based on unproven facts against any individual or individuals. So hold the surprise until the facts can be proven beyond dispute!
The Jamaicans are no doubt carrying out their investigations, and so too we are told the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU). How much these two countries are working together is not known, but if progress is to be made, then it means that both Guyana and Jamaica will need to cooperate
Is CANU then the best agency through which to achieve this cooperation? If reports within the media to the effect that CANU was previously relieved of its responsibilities to carry out duties on exportations at wharves are accurate, it can only mean a loss of confidence in that body, and therefore it ought not to have been entrusted with any investigation into the present shipment.
If CANU is deemed not good enough to carry out duties at wharves, then they should not be involved at all, especially at a late hour, in any investigation into a multi-million-dollar drug bust.
There will always of course be limitations to local drug enforcement agencies. The underpaid, understaffed and under-resourced operatives cannot be expected to have successes in prosecuting the big drug lords in Guyana, but they can and should be effective in intercepting major shipments of drugs. So why, if the reports are true, were they not manning the wharves also.
In relation to the investigation taking place at the moment, it would not be surprising if the results of those investigations do not turn up a suspect. The foreign drug enforcement agencies are never willing to share intelligence that they would have taken years to build up and therefore the local anti-narcotics agencies are not likely to receive the sort of support that they would expect to help solve the puzzle as to who shipped the drugs in the container.
There have been other major drug busts in the past, far larger than the one made in Jamaica and no one was prosecuted locally, because the international agencies painstakingly build their cases slowly and would not wish to compromise all the efforts they would have put into a case, simply to allow Guyana to find out who shipped the drugs.
When they are ready to move, they do so against the background of a solid case which they would have taken years to build rather than trying for quick results.
The Americans by now would have had their agents working on this case and no doubt they also have moles within the local law enforcement agencies providing them with information. They most likely have more information than the government, about who was behind this recent shipment.
The government of Guyana, however, cannot simply throw up its hands up in despair and complain about the lack of intelligence and information sharing. The government must appreciate that given the street value of the cocaine involved, that it has an obligation to demonstrate that it is serious about knowing who was behind this shipment and should therefore have done more than simply call in the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit to investigate.
Given that there was an international dimension to this matter, then the government should have invited forensic experts from overseas to investigate. These experts are likely to be more trusted by foreign drug enforcement agencies and therefore could provide critical information as to just who was behind this shipment.
You cannot leave a case like this to local drug enforcement agencies. This is a case that requires international cooperation and this can only be had by ensuring that the best resources are dedicated to the job, so that the case can be solved.

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