Expressing alarm over the fact that 11.5 tonnes of cocaine made it out of Guyana on a scrap metal shipment to Belgium, Home Affairs Minister Robeson Benn surmised that this crime had to take months of planning and preparation.
“Of course, the thought is this activity could not have happened overnight…it had to be in preparation and planning for a long period of time and that it would have taken quite a bit of time to plan and do the logistics. I think to compromise persons and fooling others too in respect of making the shipment so it had to be several months in preparation,” he said.
Minister Benn said Guyana has since informed its international partners of the vigorous investigations being conducted locally.
“We have assured the European authorities, the Belgian law enforcement authorities and also the US authorities of our vigorous engagement of coming to terms and dealing with and discovering those who were involved in perpetrating this crime,” he said.
In fact, during several recent raids, ranks of the Customs Anti-Narcotics Agency (CANU) and the Guyana Police Force (GPF) encountered homemade explosive devices at a location in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica).
“There were a number of houses searched. I am aware that care was taken to enter a particular house. There appeared to be a rigged up explosive arrangement at the normal entrance to that house,” the Minister revealed.
At least four persons are in custody and are being interviewed by the authorities while the manhunt is still on for businessman Marlon Primo, whose last known addresses are 701 Cummings Lodge, East Coast Demerara (ECD) and 69 Atlantic Ville, ECD.
On November 5, the Brussel Times reported that Belgian authorities had intercepted a vessel that allegedly left Guyana in October with a whooping 11.5 tonnes of cocaine – which has a street value of some US$1B.
It was reported that counter-narcotics prosecutors tracked the transatlantic journey of 11.5 tonnes of cocaine from Guyana, and seized it upon its arrival at the Port of Antwerp, Belgium, on Wednesday last.
The drugs were 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.
According to the report, the massive load of cocaine left Guyana late in October, and prosecutors were able to track it 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.
The reports stated that three police officers, a port manager, and a lawyer were among some 20 other criminals arrested as part of an operation targeting the “well-structured” criminal organisation suspected of orchestrating large and “regular” drug shipments from South America to Belgium.
