-as probe of cocaine ring continues
The Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) yesterday questioned a businessman connected to the car trade suspected to be a key financier of drug trafficking.
CANU sources say the man was pulled in yesterday after a series of raids stemming from information which the unit gleaned recently during its investigation of two shipments of pepper sauce in which cocaine was secreted.
The sources say the businessman denied involvement in the cocaine trade but acknowledged knowing several of the key figures who were fingered in the pepper sauce busts. CANU sources say it is believed that this businessman is one of a clique which invests money in the drug trade in the expectation of big returns while under the cover of running supposedly legitimate enterprises.
Several associates of the businessman were also questioned and CANU laid out in front of them the type of intelligence that had been gathered. After several hours of questioning, the businessman was let go with the understanding that he would have to check back in with CANU.
CANU also homed in on another player in the trade who operates a trawler. The agency is also looking for two other men believed to be key players in the trafficking of cocaine to Barbados and St Maarten. Both of these men are deportees.
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.
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.
Sources say CANU’s recent interrogations have made drug operators jittery and distrustful of those around them.
With a growing number of interceptions abroad of drug shipments and couriers, analysts say that CANU must be able to bring charges and successfully prosecute them here. A major problem is the lack of workable witness protection arrangements.
Several persons that the agency has questioned in the recent past may be prepared to testify but fear for their lives.
