Surveillance of the seven men now before a Welsh court charged in connection with the 120 kilos of cocaine discovered in a consignment of Guyanese timber, has placed four of them as having made contact with the backers of a cultural event staged here.

The contact was made at a boxing match in the United States. That contact was followed by a visit here by Jamaican businessman, Leebert Barrows in April to facilitate the shipment of the cocaine which left here on May 9 aboard the MV Antilles. The consignment was one of four loaded at a Georgetown wharf.

Barrows is one of the seven men charged with the importation of the cocaine. There other six are Gerald Davies, Anthony Chambers, Michael Silcox, Milton Wilson, Joseph Salmon, and Mohamed Afzal Shaheen. Except for Salmon who was arrested on June 8, the others were arrested after a team of officers from HM Customs, the UK National Crime Squad and the Gwent Police tracked the timber consignment that was unloaded at Felixstowe to an industrial estate in Newport, Wales.

Information supplied to the court links Barrows and Chambers as owners of City Property Ltd, which leased Astro Business Centre. Davies and Silcox are the owners of STS International, the consignee of the May 9 shipment.

This information was supplied to a Cardiff Criminal Court, which heard a challenge by the prosecution against a ruling from the Caerphilly Magistrate’s Court that the men, remanded without bail since June 9, should be released on August 18.

The Cardiff court extended the date for their continued detention to September 30 and a committal hearing is expected to begin during the week commencing September 22. A hearing by the Caerphilly Magistrate’s Court on September 1 will determine the exact date for the committal hearing.

The evidence before the court also indicates that Barrows has been under surveillance since January 2002 when he made trips to Guyana as well as when on a visit in February.

Stabroek News is yet to ascertain whether this surveillance was carried out in Guyana with the knowledge of the police.

The charge d’affaires at the British High Commission, according to the Catholic Standard, has said that British authorities had requested and are receiving the assistance of the police with their inquiries. This newspaper has been unable to contact Home Affairs Minister Ronald Gajraj or Police Commissioner Floyd McDonald to confirm that the police are co-operating with the British authorities. However, Gajraj earlier in the month told Stabroek News that he had expected the request to be made within a week or two.

Earlier a police press release, after repeated requests for information, disclosed that they had been informed by the British authorities that they believed that the seven men before the court were part of smuggling ring which operated out of the Caribbean.

President Bharrat Jagdeo and the leaders of the parliamentary opposition have expressed dismay at the apparent unwillingness of the British authorities to share information with the local police.

In recent months the Customs authorities in Canada and the United Kingdom have seized a considerable quantity of cocaine smuggled out of Guyana. Among those allegedly caught were Mia Rahaman, a former Miss Guyana/Universe who was detained in Canada, and a South African citizen who had travelled from Guyana and was detained at Manchester airport. Last week the Globe and Mail, a Canadian daily reported that the Toronto police had busted a drug ring which involved Canadian nationals travelling to Guyana to pick up suitcases in which the cocaine was hidden, and then returning to Canada. A Customs officer was implicated in the drug ring.