…Atherly to take command of agency
Head of the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU), James Singh has been sent on leave as government takes step to revamp the country’s premier anti-drug agency.

The decision to send Singh on leave also comes two days after news broke of a major drug bust which involved four Guyanese nationals. Sources close to the administration told the Guyana Chronicle that the decision to send Singh on leave may or may not have any links to the cocaine case. “What I can say he has accumulated quite a lot of leave and we have decided to let him proceed on those leave,” the official told this newspaper.

Singh will proceed on leave effective from today and Major General, Retired; Michael Atherly will take full command of the operations of CANU. Atherly currently heads the National Anti-Narcotics Agency. (NANA)

Singh was appointed Head of CANU back in 2008 when following a series of polygraph tests the People’s Progressive Party Civic Government fired the agency’s head Orville Nedd. The government then said that Singh was the successful candidate out of a number of persons who applied for the job. Singh has a Diploma in Public Safety and Security Management from the University of Guyana, an International Diploma in Business Management – Cambridge International College and a Diploma in Electronics Engineering from the De Vry Institute of Technology, Toronto, Canada.

Meanwhile, the four Guyanese, who were arrested in an operation that seized 4.2 tons of cocaine worth some $US125M from a fishing boat sailing north of Suriname, the San Juan Coast Guard reported Monday have all been charged in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands.

They were identified as Mark Williams, Neville Jeffrey, Richard La Cruz and the captain of the vessel

Mohammed Nazim Hosein. Authorities said that the operation was carried out on Feb. 16 in the Atlantic Ocean, when a US Coast Guard ship detected the cocaine-carrying fishing vessel 70 feet (21 meters) long, registered on the isle of Saint Vincent. Local narcotics agents of the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit will be working with their international partners since four Guyanese were identified. The fishing vessel the men were busted on, Lady Michelle was last in Guyana in 2013.

The captain of the Coast Guard ship out of San Juan, Francisco Rego, called this the biggest maritime drug bust in the Atlantic Ocean since the year 1999. Capturing the drug runners and their cargo was made possible thanks to intelligence sharing by US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) personnel in its Santa Cruz and Barbados offices, among other federal agencies that make up the Caribbean Corridor Strike Force.

Where the cargo of drugs came from and where it was headed has not been revealed, since the investigation is still underway. “As the cocaine flow from South America continues to increase, law enforcement partners in the Eastern Caribbean Region have to increase our collaborative efforts in order to effectively respond to the threat,” the DEA’s assistant special agent in the Caribbean, James Doby, said. “Such collaborative efforts are currently underway in the Caribbean Corridor Strike Force, where law enforcement partners are collocated every day,” he said. Last week, U.S. agents confiscated cocaine during a routine operation in Caguas, Puerto Rico which was estimated to have a street value of US$14million.