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Police call on piracy victims to identify recovered items

Dec 30, 2011 News

 

Police are calling on victims of piracy attacks to come forward and identify several items which were recovered in an ongoing operation following the recent attacks on the Corentyne River.
The items including which are suspected to have been looted during attacks on fishermen are being held at police stations at Springlands and New Amsterdam.
Five men who were part of a notorious gang that is suspected to have been creating havoc among fisher folk for some time were captured and charged on Thursday last, each with three counts of robbery under arms under the new piracy and hijacking act.
The men are all fishermen and were attached to one of the biggest fish ports in the country, the Number 66 Fishermen’s Coop, located in Berbice.
Kaieteur News understands that another 48 horse power Yamaha outboard engine was recovered by Police ranks on Christmas Eve from a man at Scottsburg, Springlands, Berbice
The man claimed that he bought the item from one of the five men who are presently on remand.
This engine is added to another that was recovered from Number 66 Creek a few days earlier.
Also in the police’s possession are cellular phones, engine parts, a generator and a GPS, all of which were discovered at the home of a relative of an official of the Corentyne Anti- Piracy Body.
According to Commander of “B” Division, Steve Merai, the Force is making a public call for those who were affected and suffered losses to come forward and identify the items.
‘We know the engine is stolen and we are calling on people to come out and identify it.”
On December 17, fisherman Leslie Veerasammy, of Mon Repos Housing Scheme, East Coast Demerara, and his three crew members were attacked and robbed by the five men who were armed with guns and cutlasses.
The men took away a quantity of fish, fish glue, grocery, a 48-horsepower outboard engine, a 12-volt battery, a compass and a GPS, and escaped, leaving the victims adrift.
Veerasammy and the other victims managed to reach ashore on Monday and reported the matter to the police who, acting on information received, arrested the alleged perpetrators. Intense interrogation led to one of the suspects relenting and giving vital details of their operations.
The official was detained by police in Berbice after his boat was identified as the one used by pirates who raided several vessels, carting off their catch and engines and leaving the crews to drift ashore.
Kaieteur News was made to understand that the Fishermen’s Cooperative Society Chairman, Indar, was alleged to have purchased the catch brought in by the pirates.
The boat which is owned by the Chairman of the Upper Corentyne Fishermen’s Co-op is still in police possession since it is suspected that it was used in other piracy attacks.
More charges are expected to be laid shortly.
According to a source, the guilty fishermen had a well organised operation through which the catch is resold to the Co-op. The gun is usually taken out wrapped up in the seine. Sometimes the boat would leave the wharf with one man short and this man would be picked up with the weapon afterwards.
The pirates would usually hijack boats that are not from the Corentyne area after which they would head for Suriname.
They would return to Guyana a few days later and pretend as if nothing had happened.
Within recent times Suriname as a safe haven has been off limits to the pirates, since the authorities in that country have stepped up their patrol.
Investigators are also looking at a possible link between this gang of pirates and the five fishermen who disappeared earlier in the year.

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