Sniffing out the cocaine in fish trail
Editorial
Stabroek News
May 31, 2004
The interception of a large amount of cocaine stuffed into frozen grey snappers provides law enforcement officers with a meaty opportunity to help unravel the knotty threads of the drug insurgency.
To what extent local drug enforcement agencies are trusted by their overseas counterparts and are therefore involved in joint operations is unclear. There have been suggestions in law enforcement circles that high profile shipments of cocaine in timber and rice and another involving a former national cyclist were allowed to leave the country with the full knowledge of local agencies so that the importers or the consignees could be nabbed by foreign law enforcers such as the US DEA and Scotland Yard. There is much doubt about this as our interception agencies have had little success in tapping the roots of the trade and prosecuting its high-profile participants. Moreover, the recent successes scored in the US against traffickers between the Timehri and Kennedy airports and the indictments handed down seem to be built exclusively around efforts by US lawmen. Which is why the netting of the grey snappers at Timehri seems to be based more on local intelligence and alertness rather than any joint effort with an overseas agency, otherwise the cocaine-stuffed fish would have been allowed to reach its destination so that its importers could be identified and prosecuted.
Numerous reservations have been expressed in these columns and elsewhere about the police/CANU ability to successfully prosecute cases like the cocaine in fish and we look forward to a big effort to nail the persons responsible though we are cognisant of the numerous pitfalls to be scaled once the cases go to court. It has been reported that the person who is alleged to have attempted the export of the cocaine, and who fled the airport after he realised that the game was up, has been detained by law enforcement authorities. There must be a large number of persons at the airport who could easily identify him as the person who presented himself as the exporter of the cocaine. His later behaviour in fleeing the airport clearly establishes the mindset of someone with a lot to hide. It is hoped that his identification would assist in easily stitching up a case against him.
What, however, is just as important as prosecuting this individual is investigating the level of assistance he received in putting together his shipment and arresting and charging those guilty of aiding him in this enterprise. Such an investigation will also highlight the administrative flaws and weaknesses in an export system where the greatest vigilance must be shown. With the US now extremely sensitive about vulnerabilities that can be exploited by terrorists it will no doubt look seriously at exports from countries where gross deficiencies in systems exist.
In the May 21 edition of Stabroek Business, the numerous procedures and steps that this seafood exporter would have had to have gone through to successfully export were outlined. This red tape should provide another trail to enable law enforcers to make the case stick against this trafficker. There are many areas that law enforcers should look at.
Firstly, how does someone simply wake up one morning and hit on the idea to export 60 boxes of grey snappers filled with cocaine? Clearly this had to be part of an ongoing enterprise that has succeeded before in exporting cocaine through various means.
Secondly, the source of the grey snappers must be established. Did our intrepid exporter set off that morning in a boat, cast a net out at sea and haul in his shipment of grey snappers? Hardly likely. He or some intermediary in the fishing business purchased a large amount of snappers for the failed venture. Our investigators must find the source of the snappers and make a determination as to whether the sellers were involved in this fishy business. Every major catcher and seller of grey snappers is surely known to the Ministry of Fisheries, the marketing corporation and the fishermen's organisation. The information should not be difficult to glean.
Thirdly, our exporter required fairly sizable facilities to `process' his snappers. Some of the snappers were slit open, innards removed, the cocaine stuffed in its cavity and the fish sewn up. It's not the type of operation conducted in the average man's kitchen or by one person as a matter of fact. The willing helpers had to have had significant floor space for this operation.
Fourthly, on sewing up the fish our exporter then had to take care of freezing. This was no ordinary freezing but the blast type which is used mainly in the export business to ensure that the produce does not thaw out during transport. There can't be very many facilities offering this type of freezing and it should be fairly easy for our investigators to check where it was done and to see if there was any complicity in the shipment or laxity in not noticing what the fish contained.
Fifthly, exporters require a significant amount of paperwork. So there are several places where the trafficker or his proxies would have been identified. More importantly, investigators would be able to find out whether the agencies acted appropriately in approving the paperwork. It is possible that the exporter may not even have been registered and may have simply inserted himself into the system at the airport. This would raise serious questions about procedures at Timehri.
To export the fish, the `exporter' would have first had to present himself to the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) for an export number. A licence would then have had to be purchased from the Ministry of Fisheries and taken to the Customs and Trade Administration for processing. Thereafter, a certificate would have had to be obtained from the Veterinary Public Health Department following the inspection of the `exporter's' processing facilities. What facilities did this exporter have and where?
At the airport, a variety of documentation is required. The export documentation with information on the exporter and importer would have had to be shown along with receipt of purchase or ownership of the fish and storage and processing letters approved by the fisheries department.
After the shipment is on board the craft - the exporter didn't get this far - a certificate of health and other documents were to be handed over together with invoices with the US Food and Drug Administration number. Did the `exporter' have these and how were these obtained?
As outlined above, there are numerous leads in the sea in which the fishy `exporter' swam and any law enforcement agency worth its salt would be exploiting them to the fullest. The police, CANU, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the government in general should be pushing to have each and every one of these leads explored to prove to the public that a real effort is being made against drug traffickers.