“Nevertheless, there were unearthed loopholes and irregularities regarding the local handling of the shipment which has resulted in a collaborative investigation by CANU and GRA seeking to amend same.“
According to the Customers Anti Narcotics Unit (CANU) the suspected narcotic was found in one twenty feet (20 ft) container containing several bags of white rice shipped from Guyana.
The said contaminated container was one out of a shipment of a total of (12) 20 ft containers. That entire shipment of the 12 containers comprised 6000 bags of white rice intended for export to a company in Poland.
The vessel intended to transport the said 12 containers was loaded and sailed from Guyana between the 25th and 26th May 2020.
It was confirmed that all 12 of the said containers were scanned locally by GRA operatives and no narcotic was detected nor were their seals appeared to have been tampered with.
It is key to note that the said vessel which departed Guyana arrived on June 7th, 2020 in another territory where the said 12 containers were reportedly off loaded in that territory and remained in –transit for a total of 6 days after which those 12 containers which included the one later found to be contaminated were then re-loaded onto another vessel different from the vessel that initially transported those 12 containers from Guyana.
That said second vessel with the 12 containers and its other cargo then arrived in Hamburg, Germany on June 27th, 2020 and discharged the said 12 containers the following day, June 28th, 2020.
The said 12 containers remained at their boarded location in Germany for several days after which they were then searched and the suspected narcotic were intercepted on Monday 10th August 2020.
The media release from CANU, added that, “importantly, newspaper clippings out of the territory in which the said 12 containers remained in-transit in were found to have been used to wrap some of the bundles of suspected narcotic intercepted in Germany.
CANU added that it has conducted an extensive investigation into the handling, shipping and export of this shipment of white rice and has not yet found conclusive evidence that suggests that the suspected narcotic was loaded onto the contaminated container in Guyana. “Nevertheless, there were unearthed loopholes and irregularities regarding the local handling of the shipment which has resulted in a collaborative investigation by CANU and GRA seeking to amend same.“
CANU will continue to participate in inter-agency collaborations in its bid to tighten the grip on Narcotic distributors throughout the Country, the released concluded.