CANU or can’t you?

Oct 28, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) is claiming some credit for the arrest of a Guyanese businessman suspected of drug trafficking. CANU is claiming that the arrest is as a result of international cooperation and that the individual concerned was on their radar.

CANU has not said why the person who was under their surveillance was never arrested and charged for the matters for which he is now under suspicion. The answer to that question has a number of implications.

It has implications for the assessment of whether the capacity exists locally to prosecute persons alleged to be involved in organized crime. If on its own, CANU could not bring this individual to justice, then what does it say about the capabilities of our major anti-narcotics agency? Given its present boast about bringing down the major players in the drug industry, it needs to be asked why it is that such a major arrest had to have been made outside of Guyana’s jurisdiction, and that the person concerned has to be extradited to the United States.

The second implication is the performance of the Special Organized Crime Unit (SOCU) in relation to organized crime. SOCU was established to go after organized crime – which most people understand to be large scale illicit criminal activity, including drug trafficking, money laundering and human trafficking. Yet, SOCU is yet to have any successful prosecution of a money launderer or a drug trafficker. But it is very adept at targeting opposition politicians.

The National Anti-Narcotics Agency (NANA) reported in September that more than G$20B or the equivalent of US$100M of illicit drugs were taken off the streets last year, and that more than 300 persons were convicted of drug-related offences. The media has not sought to verify the G$20B figure nor has it questioned NANA as to how many of those 300 persons convicted can be considered as major players in the drug business. NANA has not said how many of those convictions resulted in the forfeiture of the local assets of those convicted.

NANA is a creature of mistrust. The agency was created because the APNU+AFC coalition has fallen victim to its own propaganda. It is suspicious of anything that the PPPC established, and so it has gone and created an unnecessary and costly oversight body called NANA to overlook CANU and SOCU.

SOCU should, by now, have been hauling the masterminds of organized crime in front of the courts. It should have been targeting money launderers, since the government actually believes that Guyana had a narco-economy under the PPPC.

The offence of money laundering was specifically created to target drug traffickers by going after their illicit proceeds, including their personal and business assets. The logic was to follow the trail of ‘dirty’ money, in order to get to the source of the crime.

Anti-money laundering legislation has been one of the biggest failures in combatting organized crime. Europol, the European Policing Agency, reported that between 2010 and 2014, only 2.2 percent of the estimated proceeds of crime were provisionally seized or frozen, and only 1.1 percent of criminal profits were ultimately confiscated at the EU level.

In the United Kingdom, according to a paper written by Jackie Harvey and one S. Sittlington – name sounds familiar – only about 60% of those who were charged for money laundering were convicted. And the UK is a major narcotics consumer. And this is in developed crime-fighting and judicial jurisdictions. Imagine what the record would be like in Third World countries with weak and corrupt law enforcement and justice systems.

The third major implication of the claim by CANU, is that it may represent a vote of no-confidence in Guyana’s prosecutorial and judicial system. As such, CANU may be on an extended Kingfisher strategy – to indentify drug lords and have them charged and prosecuted outside of Guyana.