Seven persons are now before a Welsh Magistrate’s Court over the matter. The cocaine find has a reported street value of $1.9B.

Acting Police Commissioner Floyd McDonald told Stabroek News yesterday that he was still awaiting further information from the authorities in the United Kingdom but the police were going ahead with investigating from this end.

He said that his officers were talking to the six exporters who exported timber products to the United Kingdom between April 14 and May 6.

The six include an exporter who had assured Stabroek News that it had made no shipments after January 2003.

The United Kingdom Customs Department on June 9 announced the find, which it said arrived in the United Kingdom on May 29 and which it tracked, together with officers of the National Crime Squad and Gwent Police Force, to a South Wales location where the seven were arrested.

However, informed sources say that the timber consignment must have arrived in the United Kingdom before May 29 and that it was shipped to the United Kingdom aboard the EWL Venezuela which docked at Felixstowe on May 19.

The seven who are due to appear at the Caerphilly Magistrate’s Court next Monday to answer charges in relation to the cocaine find are Anthony Chambers, businessmen Lebert Barrows, a Jamaican and Gerald Davies, accountant Mohamed Afzal Shaheen, civil servant, Milton Wilson.

Transport manager Michael Silcox and business development manager, Joseph Salmon.

Apart from the police, officials at the Customs and Trade Administration and the Forestry Commission remain mum about the incident. However, Customs has instituted a number of changes in its inspection of timber exports, which the Forest Products Association describes as causing increased handling charges.