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The commissioner said he was informed that the rest of the lumber is being checked, as well as the other containers that have been prepared for shipment.
The Commissioner said he strongly believes that there needs to be a new approach towards the checking of containers, especially those carrying lumber. He iterated that every single container destined for export needs to be checked and rechecked.
He said the positive aspect of the bust is the fact that it comes on the heels of the police and other agencies being part of a recent container training which dealt with the proper checking of containers destined for export.
To substantiate his calls for the checking of “every single container again and again”, Commissioner Brumell pointed to the many past cases in which shipments of lumber emanating from Guyana were intercepted at foreign ports with cocaine stashed therein.
LARGEST DRUG BUST
Meanwhile, the GRA had said that the millions of U.S. dollars worth of cocaine discovered on Tuesday on a shipment of lumber, which was seized since early January is actually the largest drug bust in the history of Guyana.
The tax agency made the assertion in a press release Wednesday signed by the Commissioner General of the Guyana Revenue Authority, Khurshid Sattaur.
The GRA added that it is continuing investigations to see if there is any involvement of external agencies.
The weight of the drug which was removed from hollow sections of square lumber cubes was given as 359.8 kilogrammes, and according to the GRA, the shipment was destined for The Netherlands.
The GRA said that on January 17, the Customs Declaration number C2474 was presented to the Drug Enforcement Unit by a representative of Guyana Timber Products Inc to be processed for the examination of seven containers of mats of hardwood.
The shipment was issued with the relevant certificate by the Guyana Forestry Commission after an inspection by the Commission. This happened on January 21.
Subsequently, the commercial Invoice C72 Form, Timber Marketing Certificate, Export certificate and the General System of Preferencing certificate of Origin were all submitted to the GRA for the shipment of seven containers.
But on January 30, anomalies were observed as the containers were being scanned. Three of the containers with the numbers TEM 3177872-7, CMAU 120027-1 and ECMU 156081-4, sealed with the CTA seal numbers 161100 ,161102 and 174880 respectively, were determined necessary for a second examination.
It was later determined that the images which were shown as the containers passed through the scanner were not in keeping with the information contained on the C72 form.
During the mandatory examination by the Drug Enforcement Unit, it was noted that there were discrepancies in the physical content and colour coding of some of the logs. The examination is done as a form of combating the trafficking of narcotics and monitoring exports at Port Georgetown.
After the discrepancies were observed and it was confirmed that those were the logs that presented anomalies, instructions were given for one of the logs to be drilled. The drilling of the log resulted in the discovery of a white powdery substance which was tested and found to be cocaine.
The logs numbering eight were prised open in the presence of officials from the Customs Anti Narcotics Unit (CANU), Drug Enforcement Unit, GFC and the shipping agent.
The logs were drilled and 314 bricks of cocaine were discovered.
