-as pepper cocaine probe heats up
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has forwarded photos and details of other suspects in the pepper sauce cocaine bust to CANU and these leads are being tracked down.
Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) sources yesterday told Stabroek News that while on a visit here this week, RCMP officials had only furnished about a quarter of the information that local officials had been seeking. CANU complained strenuously about this in light of the volume of information that it had supplied to the Canadian law enforcers on the local operations to take down the ring.
The strategy paid dividends as immediately upon returning to Canada the RCMP forwarded information by email that CANU is now tracking as it attempts to unravel the entire network behind two separate shipments of cocaine stuffed into the dividers of cartons with pepper sauce bottles. Sources say that the RCMP might have been reticent about supplying more information until they were satisfied with what CANU was doing.
Thus far, CANU has questioned the key players in the organization that smuggled 376 kilos of cocaine in the pepper sauce cartons. One shipment was busted on December 8 in New Brunswick, Canada and the other was nabbed on December 24 in St Croix, the US Virgin Islands after Canadian authorities tipped off the US DEA.
Meanwhile, CANU sources say the unit was recently engaged in training conducted by its Canadian equivalent, the Border Security Agency. The sources say CANU staffers were exposed to training on sensitive equipment and in other areas that would assist in the drug fight. This was something that had been initiated at the agency level and would lift CANU’s capacity.
CANU is meanwhile continuing to pursue evidence and testimony in the pepper cocaine case that would enable it to present a case in courts here.
Two people that CANU had sought in this matter, Reginald Rodrigues and Orlando Watson, are believed to have fled the country by the backtrack.
Rodrigues was thought to have made it to Suriname but authorities now believe he is in Venezuela and local authorities have exchanged the relevant information with their counterparts in Caracas. Watson is believed to be in Suriname.
Another person of interest, Inderpaul Doodnauth has been in contact with CANU. His brother, Mahendrapal was arrested in Canada in relation to the New Brunswick shipment and charged. During the RCMP visit, it was made clear that a case was being built against Mahendrapaul. He was charged with importing cocaine, conspiracy to import cocaine and possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking.
Two others who co-run a store in Georgetown have also been in contact with CANU. One of the two was also being questioned in relation to a shipment of timber with cocaine seized in the Caribbean last year.
The other, a deportee, is believed to have sourced the cocaine that was stuffed into the dividers of the cartons.
While no charges have yet been laid and none of the drug shipments was intercepted here, CANU is confident that it has upturned the major drug supply network headquartered on the East Coast.
