Cocaine bust … Four more containers searched, no cocaine found

Feb 21, 2013 News

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Investigators are seeking key persons who may have played major roles in the smuggling of a large quantity of cocaine that was discovered in a lumber shipment destined for the Netherlands (Holland) on Tuesday.
The Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) has however continued its probe into the matter now checking six remaining containers that were also scheduled to leave for Europe.
Sources say that so far, three persons, including a Dutch national; Edgar Boesenach, of Coralita Avenue, Bel Air and a Guyanese, Raymond Ghani, a local manager at the Soesdyke sawmill, where the lumber was said to have been packed, are in police custody assisting with the probe.
On Tuesday, the Guyana Revenue Authority said that it unearthed about 360 kilograms of cocaine packed in hollowed out lumber. They had only checked one container at the time but yesterday, CANU head James Singh, confirmed that the agency was continuing their probe by checking other containers.
Information is that the lumber company, Guyana Timber Products Inc, was under surveillance by CANU over a few weeks. The company is said to have offices located at Prashad Nagar and another on the East Bank Demerara. The Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) was said to have closed the sawmill two weeks prior to the bust, because the company allegedly engaged in four illegal shipments of smuggled lumber.
It was also established that only recently the company was fined millions of dollars by Forestry for irregularities, but it never made the payments while continuing to ship timber.
According to sources, the local manager, Ghani, was warned last year by forestry for reportedly drilling several pieces of lumber in a container destined for Europe. Ever since, drug agents said that the manager had been under surveillance. It is believed that several drug dealers have portions in the drug shipment, ranks said.
The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) said in a press release yesterday that the agency’s Drug Enforcement Unit (DEU) discovered a total of 359.8kilograms of cocaine in a shipment of lumber. It  said that on January 17, 2013, a representative of the Guyana Timber Products Inc. approached the DEU with documentation to be processed for the exportation of seven containers of Mats of Hardwood (MHW). On January 21, 2013, the shipment was inspected and certified by the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) and was issued with the relevant certifications by the agency.
On January 30, 2013, GRA said, while the containers were being scanned, anomalies were observed and three containers were determined necessary for a secondary examination. It was determined that images were not in keeping with the information contained on the C72 Form, which clearly indicated that the content of the containers were the MHW. Among the contents of the container were blocks of hardwood.
GRA said that its staff members are required to establish that the contents in the containers are in keeping with agency regulations. GRA said that when examined by DEU, discrepancies were noticed in the physical content and colour coding of some of the logs.
Having confirmed that those were the logs that presented the anomalies, instructions were given for one of the logs to be drilled which resulted in the discovery of the white powdery substance which tested to be cocaine.
The logs numbering eight were opened in the presence of officials from CANU, DEU, GFC and the shipping agent.
Each plank, with the exception of one, GRA said contained 40 bricks. A total of 314 bricks of cocaine were discovered at the completion of the examination.
Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) investigators are also saying that GFC had uncovered fraudulent activities by the exporter of finished timber products to Europe in 2012. The GRA continued that as investigation continued with the involvement of other relevant agencies, it was discovered that in late January 2013 the company had moved square timber which were not approved for export by the GFC to a wharf in Georgetown from their production site and as such the GFC insisted that the seven containers on the wharf be detained.
Loose information is that some irregularities from state agents may have resulted in the containers getting the go ahead as past illegal shipments had been facilitated. The cocaine has a street value of hundreds of millions of US dollars.
A collaborated effort by state agents may have facilitated the massive bust. In the last two years, there have been several major drug busts with the largest ever being in October of 1998, when 6,940 pounds of cocaine valued at US$288 million was found aboard the MV Danielsen.

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