Three employees of A. Mazaharally and Sons Ltd, sawmillers and lumber dealers, were arrested and questioned by local and British law enforcement officials in connection with the discovery in the UK of cocaine in a consignment of timber from Guyana.

The cocaine was discovered in a consignment of sawn mora logs, which was listed on the invoice as being shipped by a local timber company to FTS International in the United Kingdom. The shipment arrived on board the MV Antilles, which sailed for the United Kingdom on May 6 and arrived there on May 29.

When the discovery of cocaine was first reported, a spokesman for the company told Stabroek News that the company had not exported any logs to the United Kingdom after January.

The employees Imtiaz Baksh, Alemodeen Alie and Natasha Sahib were arrested separately and questioned by a team of law enforcement officers from the Criminal Investigation Department CID and representatives of HM Customs at Police Headquarters, Eve Leary.

They were released after their counsel applied to Justice Claudette La Bennett for writs of habeas corpus directed to the Commissioner of Police. Baksh was released on Thursday evening and Alie and Sahib were released yesterday after the orders were made absolute. Senior Counsel Rex McKay in association with Gentle Elias and Jameela Ali appeared for them.

According to the supporting affidavits to their notice motion, Baksh, Alie and Sahib gave statements to the investigating team, which were sworn before a Commissioner of Oaths.

Baksh, who is the company’s procurement officer, related his encounter with a Jamaican national by the name of George Marks who was introduced to him by a man he knows only by the name of Philip.

He said that Marks arranged for the purchase and shipment of two consignments of logs, one of which left here on April 25 on the MV Venezuela. He said that Marks placed the order for the second consignment - two flat rack 40-foot containers - on April 23. He said that because of the difficulty encountered in the financial arrangements for the first consignment, a company official informed Marks that he would have to make his own arrangements for shipping. At that time he received US$7,000 towards the cost of the consignment. However, because of production difficulties, the company could only provide enough lumber for one container. Marks was required to make all the arrangements for shipping that container to the United Kingdom.

This was subsequently delivered to Marks at Mazaharally’s Princes Street location. On delivery of the consignment, Marks paid US$3,000 to complete payment on the consignment and the remainder to be applied towards the cost of the other container when it was delivered.

Seven persons are before the courts in the United Kingdom charged with the importation of the cocaine found in the consignment of logs. They were arrested after a team comprising officers from HM Customs, the UK National Crime and the Gwent Police traced the consignment to an industrial estate in South Wales

Among the seven arrested is a Jamaican businessman, Lester Barrows, whom British law enforcement officials had under surveillance during a visit to Guyana in April to allegedly facilitate the shipment. Barrows and the other persons charged with him are scheduled to appear before a Cardiff Crown Court on December 12.