Cocaine in timber case
Scotland Yard team concludes investigation
Stabroek News
November 18, 2003
The British law enforcement officers, who were in Guyana to further inquiries into the cocaine discovered in the United Kingdom concealed in a consignment of timber, have completed their investigations.
Police sources say that they left here last week after speaking with three employees of A Mazaharally & Sons. The three employees were picked up by the local police at different times but were released after their relatives applied to the courts for writs of habeas corpus.
The three gave written statements to the police, which were sworn to before a Commissioner of Oaths and Affidavits before they were released.
During their stay the law- enforcement officials also interviewed those exporters who shipped timber consignments between April 29 and May 6 as well as the employees of the shipping company from whose wharf the MV Antilles, the vessel on which the cocaine was found when it docked at Felixstowe on May 29, sailed.
A team of officers from the UK Customs, the UK National Crime Squad and the Gwent Police tracked the consignment, which was add-ressed to FTS International to an industrial estate in Newport, Wales.
There they arrested seven men on June 7, who have since been charged with importing the cocaine. The men are Jamaican businessman Lebert Barrows, businessman Gerald Davies, hairdresser Anthony Cha-mbers, accountant Moh-amed Afzal Shaheen, civil servant, Milton Wilson, transport manager Michael Silcox and business development manager, Joseph Salmon.