– Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit

THE Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) has reported that it has found no conclusive evidence that the suspected cocaine found in a container of rice shipment intercepted by German police earlier this month was loaded onto the container in Guyana.
CANU, in a release, however, noted that following an extensive investigation into the handling, shipping and export of the shipment of white rice, it has unearthed loopholes and irregularities regarding the local handling of the shipment.
This has resulted in a collaborative investigation by CANU and Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) seeking to amend same.
Some 1.5 tonnes of suspected cocaine found in a container with rice was intercepted at Hamburg Port by Germany police was on August 10, 2020.
The suspected narcotic was found in one 20-feet container containing several bags of white rice shipped from Guyana.
The said container was one out of a shipment of a total of 12 20-feet containers. That entire shipment of the 12 containers comprised 6,000 bags of white rice intended for export to a company in Poland.

The vessel intended to transport the said 12 containers was loaded and sailed from Guyana between May 25 and 26, 2020.
It was confirmed that all 12 of the said containers were scanned locally by GRA operatives and no narcotic was detected, nor were their seals appeared to have been tampered with.

It is key to note that the said vessel, which departed Guyana, arrived on June 7, 2020 in another territory where the 12 containers were reportedly off loaded in that territory and remained in – transit for a total of six days, after which those 12 containers, which included the one later found to be contaminated, were then re-loaded onto another vessel different from the vessel that initially transported those 12 containers from Guyana.
That said second vessel with the 12 containers and its other cargo then arrived in Hamburg, Germany on June 27, 2020 and discharged the containers the following day, June 28, 2020.
The 12 containers remained at their boarded location in Germany for several days after which they were then searched and the suspected narcotics were intercepted on Monday, August 10, 2020.

Importantly, newspaper clippings out of the territory in which the said 12 containers remained in-transit in, were found to have been used to wrap some of the bundles of suspected narcotic intercepted in Germany.
CANU said its investigation continues and it will continue to participate in inter-agency collaborations to tighten the grip on narcotic distributors throughout the country.