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Cocaine in rice shipment…Profile scanning leaves leeway for drug traffickers

Aug 26, 2013 News

 

– investigators

By Zena Henry

Checking the numerous tons of cargo that regularly leave the country could pose a massive task for the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), which is already lacking in resources. As such, GRA says it has designed a profiling system that would allow checks to be made on seemingly suspicious cargo shipments. But this method, local investigators- probing the Dominican Republic cocaine rice bust opined, is “leaving leeway for drug traffickers to get their shipment out of the country.”
The investigators related that as investigations progress, several security glitches in the system are being recognized. They noted that regular cargo shippers can be almost sure that their shipments will not be checked because of their assumed credibility and reputation. This they say is not good since whether the ‘top man’ chooses not to engage in drug activities, “others might see a golden opportunity, go for it and have a lesser chance of being fingered.”
Moreover, investigators say they found that GRA’s container scanner has not been operating for more than four months now, yet this information was not declared.
Anti-drug ranks say that they are now trying to find out whether the rice in question was scanned. It was learnt that in each of the containers destined for Venezuela, there were 500 bags of rice and three each had 23 packets of cocaine.
The Customs Anti-Narcotic Unit (CANU) has noted, however, that there is much evidence to believe that the Venezuelan shipment–probably because it was a legitimate shipment that was part of the Venezuela/ Guyana PetroCaribe rice deal–had not been searched.  The ranks are to determine whether the drug was loaded while the rice was on the ship or out of port.
In the meantime, investigators say they are taking statements from persons who were directly involved with the shipment and working their way down.
When contacted, GRA head Khurshid Sattaur refuted that the agency’s container scanner is not operating.
“As far as I am aware the scanner has been working all the time,” he told Kaieteur News. When reporters visited the location Saturday, security guards related that as far as they knew the scanner is operating, with two recent scans done that morning.  The female guard said that she had been working at the site for some time and the scanner has always been operating. As it relates to the mentioned shipment, Sattaur had told Kaieteur News in a previous report that a profiling system is used because of the mass cargo being shipped daily.
Local and foreign investigators are still trying to ascertain the origin of the 70 kilogrammes of cocaine which was stashed in the bulk consignment, seized by the Dominican Republic (DR). The ship, MV Azuria, left Guyana on August 2 for Jamaica. Authorities in DR were reportedly tipped that the drugs had been packed in the containers.
From all appearances,  DR’s National Drugs Control Agency (DNCD) believe that the drug shipment was meant for their country since they said that one of three men detained last week was waiting for the cocaine to re-ship it.
The country’s Dominican Today reported that Jose Manuel Alcántara had been arrested during a raid on an apartment in Andres, in the country’s beach town of Boca Chica.
Two other men, Robert Garcia Ramirez, 36, and a Venezuelan national Yonathan Alberto Reyes were also arrested as they were about to board a plane to Caracas.

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