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Atlantic Ville man wanted in connection with Belgium coke seizure; broker arrested
What Belgian authorities found.
Kaieteur News – As the Belgian authorities continue their probe, local investigators have arrested a broker and are looking for a businessman who is said to be a person of interest in one of biggest drug bust of that European country.
The probe is involving the Belgian authorities, the US’ Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Guyana’s Customs Anti Narcotic Unit (CANU).
Giving an update yesterday, head of the CANU, James Singh, disclosed that two persons initially held on Thursday when the story broke- a broker and his mother- were released after new information came to light.
Another broker was then arrested. CANU is also actively trying to locate Marlon Primo, said to be the brother of local artiste, Jomo ‘Rubber Waist’ Primo.
Primo is said to be the principal in a company call MA Trading, which has its business place at Atlantic Ville, East Coast Demerara.
MA Trading is the company that shipped the container. The container which was seized in Belgium was ascertained to the same one that left Guyana, Kaieteur News was told.
Belgian prosecutors said Thursday they have dealt a new blow to a recently disbanded drug gang led by a former Belgian police chief as they announced the largest-ever drug bust shipment “in the world”, after finding 11.5 tonnes of cocaine in a scrap metal shipment from Guyana.
Here, head of Customs Anti-Narcotic Unit, James Singh, had initially disclosed that two persons have been detained.
Local investigators were trying to determine if the containers seized in Belgium are the same ones that left Guyana.
According to the story in the Brussel Times, counter-narcotics prosecutors said they had tracked the trans-Atlantic journey of the cocaine from Guyana, and seized it upon its arrival at the Port of Antwerp.
The catch is “the largest overseas drug bust ever, worldwide,” federal prosecutors told Belgian media, estimating the street value of the drug load at €900 million. The massive load of cocaine left a port in Guyana on late October and prosecutors were able to track, following the dismantlement of a drug trafficking gang led by a former Belgian counter-narcotics chief which revealed the existence of tight-knit links between criminal gangs and counter-narcotics and law enforcement officials.
Three police officers, a port manager and a lawyer were among some 20 other criminals arrested as part of the operation targeting the “well-structured” criminal organisation suspected of orchestrating large and “regular” drug shipments from South America to Belgium.
The record-breaking shipment was expected by law enforcement officials as it is suspected it left the port of Guyana after the drug gang’s arrest in Belgium, with drug gangs unable to intercept it once at sea, De Standaard reports.
It was disguised as scrap metal and placed inside a steel container which was in turn packed into a sea container and loaded into a transatlantic vessel. The dismantlement of the drug gang in late September led to the arrest and indictment of 22 people, with three people still in the Netherlands awaiting extradition. Following the bust on Wednesday, three others were arrested, including one person who is facing extradition to Belgium from the Netherlands.
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