The Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) says after extensive investigation it has found no conclusive evidence which suggests that the huge cocaine bust found in a shipment of rice in Germany earlier this month was loaded onto the container in Guyana.
As a matter of fact, CANU noted that after the shipment left Guyana between May 25-26, 2020, it arrived in another territory on June 7, where the 12 containers were reportedly offloaded and remained in –transit for a total of six days.
According to CANU, the 12 containers were then re-loaded onto another vessel different from the vessel that left Guyana and then set sail; the vessel arrived in Hamburg, Germany on June 27 and discharged the said 12 containers the following day.
“The said 12 containers remained at their boarded location in Germany for several days after which they were then searched and the suspected narcotic were intercepted on Monday 10th August 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 noted in a statement Thursday night.
A reported tip-off led police authorities in Hamburg, Germany to seize over €300 million worth of cocaine in the cargo ship container.
This is one of the largest quantities ever seized in the northern German port city. The massive stash was hidden between sacks of rice in the container.
CANU, in its statement, explained that the entire shipment of the 12 containers comprised 6000 bags of white rice intended for export to a company in Poland.
The agency confirmed that all 12 of the said containers were scanned locally by operatives of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) and no narcotic was detected nor were their seals appeared to have been tampered with.
Even though CANU did not find any conclusive evidence of the shipment being contaminated here, it unearthed loopholes and irregularities regarding the local handling of the shipment which has resulted in a collaborative investigation by CANU and GRA.
