Two arrested in Guyana

THE Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) has been contacted by its international counterpart, after a shipment of 11.5 tonnes of cocaine was seized in Belgium. The Local agency and its Belgian counterpart are working closely on the matter.

One CANU official confirmed that two persons, including the shipper of the container that was found with the cocaine, are in custody.

The massive load of cocaine left a port in Guyana late October and Belgian 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.

Belgian prosecutors, on Wednesday, dealt a new blow to a recently-disbanded drug gang led by a former Belgian police chief, after announcing the largest-ever overseas drug bust “in the world.”

Counter-narcotics prosecutors said they had tracked the transatlantic journey of 11.5-tonnes of cocaine from Guyana, on the northeastern coast of South America, 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.

Three police officers, a port manager and a lawyer were among some 20 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 they suspected it left the port of Guyana after members of the drug gang’s arrest in Belgium, with drug gangs unable to intercept it once at sea, De Standaard reports.

The shipment of cocaine 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 record-breaking drug bust on Wednesday, three others were arrested, including one person who is facing extradition to Belgium from the Netherlands.

Meanwhile, back in August, customs officials in the port of Hamburg, Germany, made one of the port’s largest drug busts.
They discovered more than 1.5 tonnes of cocaine hidden in a container of rice arriving aboard a ship from Guyana.

German investigators reportedly received a confidential tip about the drug smuggling operation and began a thorough search of the container yard.
When the container was examined at the city’s customs office, investigators revealed that they discovered 47 large packages of cocaine hidden between sacks of rice from Guyana.

Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international broadcaster, reported that it was among the largest quantities of cocaine ever seized in Hamburg.
However, CANU subsequently stated that the cocaine found in Germany was more than likely loaded in Dominica and not Guyana.

According to CANU, it was confirmed that all 12 of the said containers were scanned locally by operatives of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) and no narcotic was detected nor were their seals appeared to have been tampered with.

In fact, the containers were in-transit elsewhere.