Eight Guyanese are among the 548 persons now in the custody of the US immigration service following a US Justice Department round up of persons believed connected to the terrorist organisation responsible for the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Two Trinidadians were the only other Caribbean nationals picked up.

The eight, whose names have not been released by the INS were charged with immigration violations between October 18 and November 30. To date the Guyana mission in Washington has not been informed of their identity or detention, though this is required by the Vienna Convention. Stabroek News has been told too that the Trinidad and Tobago mission in Washington DC had not yet been notified about its nationals in custody.

The violations for which the eight Guyanese have been detained are:

* being present in the US without inspection;

* commission of fraud in the procurement of a visa to enter the US;

* not being in possession of a valid entry document;

* being inadmissible for entry/adjustment of status;

* overstaying period granted for stay in the US;

* failure to maintain status i.e. student not attending school as a non-immigrant without authorization.

The violations are all deportable offences. The Guyana embassy in Washington is looking into the matter.

Stabroek News understands too that in addition to these eight Guyanese, there was a further 11 who had been detained as Indian nationals because they were in possession of Republic of India passports. On December 2, a Times of India report said that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and India's Central Bureau of Investigation were collaborating in investigating the activities of a clerk in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs who had been posted to the Indian High Commission here. The clerk is believed to be implicated in a passport racket in India. The police here were not aware of the investigation and a top police official told Stabroek News that to the best of his knowledge the police had not been asked for any assistance by Interpol.