BUSINESSMAN Barry Dataram, his reputed wife and two other persons were last evening arrested by ranks of the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit following a raid on a house at Diamond, East Bank Demerara.The Guyana Chronicle was informed that the ranks had been monitoring the house, which is being rented to two of the four persons arrested last evening.According to additional information, CANU officers during a swoop on the premises stumbled upon a quantity of cocaine in frozen food, while some amount of cocaine was discovered loose. An undisclosed amount of local and foreign currency and a quantity of high-powered ammunition were found in the house.
Sources close to the investigation disclosed that the cocaine which was discovered inside the house was tested and weighed to be more than one hundred kilos.
Barry Dataram several years ago engaged the courts in Guyana to block an extradition to the United States of America, where he was wanted for trafficking drugs into that country.
Meanwhile, over the past few months there have been several drug busts at local and international airports involving Guyanese who have been employing all means to conceal the illegal substance, in an effort to get it out of this country.
A latest development which was brought to the attention of this newspaper was that several young people from a village on the East Coast of Demerara have found themselves before the courts locally and abroad for smuggling cocaine out of Guyana or attempting to do so. In all the cases it was found that the young people are all connected to a certain church in that community.