Seized firearms among those listed as ‘missing’ from Police Force

A number of firearms which were seized by the Guyana Police Force recently has been discovered as those missing from the armory of the Guyana Police Force.

This is according to Minister of Home Affairs, Robeson Benn, who on Wednesday revealed that the current system that is being used to store firearms is not efficient, as he alluded to limited storage capacity.

“The investigation is still underway. I did in fact visit the police armory today and the situation there is not encouraging with respect to the storage of the firearms; being able to recognise and retrieve them properly, obviously much more room needs to be provided to store the firearm properly, have them properly labelled and that in terms of retrieving them, even though they have a computerized system, it has to be fully functional so that it can complement the book system that they have there too,” Minister Benn told reporters at the sidelines of an event at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre.

A recent audit found that over 150 firearms were missing from the police armory and several police officers were placed under close arrest.

“The audit is not completed. We know that some of these firearms are on the road, and that a few have been identified as having come from the police [armory] and so when we get more information, we will update fully on it,” Minister Benn said.

In a subsequent follow-up interview with the News Room, Minister Benn clarified that several weapons, which were seized recently during police search operations, were discovered to be among the firearms missing.

The News Room understands that the guns went missing under the watch of Deputy Commissioner of Police, Maxine Graham, who was in control of ‘Operations’. The Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) is also assisting with the investigations.