…CANU files narco-trafficking charges against quartet for Zeelugt bust

The Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) has filed two charges against four men for the $550M cocaine bust in dressed wood at Zeelugt, East Bank Essequibo back on May 12th.
A release from CANU said that bike racer Stephen Vieira has been charged jointly with Tazim Gafoor, Nazim Gafoor and Sherwayne DeAbreu with trafficking in narcotics. In absentia, Narine Lall has been charged separately with trafficking in narcotics. CANU had initially held a fifth man Hakim Mohamed but he has not been charged.

In its initial statement CANU had said that ranks made the discovery after conducting a search at the parapet in front of the premises of one Akeem Mohamed at 227 Zeelugt, East Bank Essequibo on May 12. They searched a truck laden with several pallets of 1×6 dressed lumber boards. After several boards were drilled randomly, a whitish substance suspected to be cocaine was found.
“The truck, its driver and porters were escorted to CANU Headquarters where a detailed search of the cargo was completed. The said search revealed cocaine found in random boards scattered among genuine boards in each pallet. Each of the compromised boards had a dug out cavity with vacuum sealed plastic packets containing cocaine pasted therein. Discovered was a total of 84.986 kilograms of cocaine, having a landed US street value in excess of 550 million Guyana dollars,” the release had said.

CANU had said too investigations revealed that the truck was hired to pick up and transport the lumber from Lall’s sawmill at Lookout, East Bank Essequibo to the wharf at Georgetown. “At this time, all porters and the truck driver are still in custody assisting in investigations that reveal a well-planned web of participants,” the anti-narcotics agency said. It noted that popular racing popular motorcyclist Vieira was listed on shipping documents as the representative of Lall, the shipper. Naraine Lall based on investigations thus far is allegedly out of the jurisdiction as revealed by checks at his home for him.

CANU had said that it had a digital video recording device retrieved from Nazim Gafoor at Vreed-en-Hoop,West Bank Demerara and hopes to find material of evidential value after due analysis. Further, the unit said there was a batch of related dress wood from the very shipper that had already made it onto the wharf and which was retrieved by CANU.