A local suspect has been identified by the Guyana police in connection with the Cdn$40 million drug bust that was made in Ontario, Canada earlier this month, according to acting Commissioner of Police, Henry Greene who said investigators are looking for the man.
Greene said yesterday that the police are working in collaboration with the Customs Anti- Narcotics Unit (CANU) but they have not contacted Canadian police in connection with the cocaine which was found in cartons of Guyana pepper sauce.
Businessman, Mahendrapaul Doodnauth, owner of Caribbean International Food Distributors, to which the pepper sauce was destined, has been charged in Canada after he was found offloading the shipment, with a small amount of cocaine still in it, at a storage facility in Etobicoke. The cocaine bust was made after months of investigation which saw the Canadian police tracking the shipment from New Brunswick and letting Doodnauth take possession of it.
Reports were that the shipment left Guyana and arrived in the country on board the Tropic Canada in Saint John, New Brunswick on December 8. The freighter reportedly regularly transports goods between Saint John and the Caribbean.
Stabroek News contacted the Light House, which has a record of all ships entering and leaving Port Georgetown, and was told that the Tropic Canada never entered these waters. However, knowledgeable persons in the shipping industry told Stabroek News that the shipment could have left aboard another ship, probably a smaller vessel, and then transferred to the Tropic Canada via another Caribbean country. If Tropic Canada had entered this country the Light House would have had a record of it.
Yesterday Greene said that the shipment did leave from Guyana but he declined to say by what means it left. Greene said that as of now they are still conducting their investigations and when asked how the cocaine-laden cartons of pepper sauce could have left these shores when checks had to be made, he directed this newspaper to CANU.
The commissioner also stressed that though they have not arrested the suspect, he has been identified and they are looking for him.
Meanwhile efforts to contact the CANU head James G Singh to shed some light on the drug shipment proved to be futile.
When Stabroek News visited the Homestretch Avenue location, a CANU officer said Singh was engaged at the moment and would not be available to speak with this newspaper even though he was informed of the purpose of the visit.
This reporter insisted that the officer inform Singh’s secretary since over the past few months, numerous messages were left by Stabroek News at the office and attempts were made to speak to the new CANU head on various other issues.
The urgency for information on the bust as well as other issues pertaining to Singh’s position which he took up at the beginning of October was stressed.
The CANU officer later returned to say that the secretary told him Singh was not taking any more appointments for the rest of the year and asked that this newspaper call his office during the second week in January 2009 to make an appointment.
Since Singh took office in October, efforts were made via telephone and visits to the CANU Headquarters for him to answer question pertaining to his appointment. Numerous messages were left with his secretary, but calls were never returned despite assurances that this would have been done.
Media reports out of Canada had indicated that the drug was inserted into the cardboard dividers inside 551 boxes out of the 1,250 that were carrying the pepper sauce. It was stated that the cocaine was uncovered by the border guards during their inspection of the freighter after investigators used an X-ray machine and a sniffer dog to find the drugs. In total, they found 276 kilogrammes of cocaine which, when cut and resold to street-level drug dealers, could amount to as much as 400 kilogrammes.
