Home Affairs Minister Oneidge Walrond has said that Guyana’s law enforcement and other relevant agencies are working to ensure that the country does not become a safe haven or transshipment point for transnational criminal organisations seeking to move illicit drugs to markets in Africa and Europe.
The Minister made the comment during the latest episode of the Starting Point Podcast, where she reaffirmed the Government’s position that Guyana will not be allowed to become a hub for international drug trafficking.
She added that local drug enforcement bodies, along with other state agencies, are working with international partners to disrupt criminal networks that may seek to exploit Guyana’s geographic location, porous borders, and transportation networks to facilitate the movement of narcotics.
“The drug trade in Guyana has become, and the approach to it has become more transnational. Our fight against drugs is not a one-agency approach anymore. We have, it has to be inter-agency,” she added while praising the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) and the Guyana Police Force (GPF) for doing a tremendous job with respect to seizures.
She nevertheless added that the biggest issue is the fact that Guyana is a transshipment point and that drugs are moving through Guyana to get to the African and European markets.
“The policies, programmes, and operations that we are currently implementing are to circumvent that. People, transnational criminal organisations, should not find a safe haven in Guyana. And that is what we have been able to uproot.”
“So, cooperation with Interpol and the US (United States) Marshal Service, we have cemented and built on those relationships, and we are doing more in terms of combating drugs through these transnational organisations and organised crime,” the Minister added.
Only recently, Director of CANU James Singh stated that with an increase in the number of drugs intercepted in Guyana during the first half of this year, the unit has observed a growing push by foreign traffickers to move narcotics through the country.
He related that the traffickers are moving to get the drugs into markets where the demand and prices are higher, with fewer risks. He noted that Guyana makes for an easy route to pass the narcotics through. “Guyana, being in the middle between the suppliers and the consumers… indeed, there’s been a bigger push to move the narcotics through [here],” Singh stated.
In fact, he pointed to a major operation recently that involved a foreign drug-trafficking organisation that attempted to bring narcotics into Guyana and have them further transshipped. Just last month, Singh indicated that the majority of the drugs, especially cocaine, that are seized in Guyana come from neighbouring Venezuela. Despite this, however, the anti-narcotics agency, working in collaboration with local and overseas partners, has managed to put a dent in the local and transnational narcotics drug trafficking networks, with increased interceptions and drug seizures recorded.
Back in August, CANU destroyed over 1,243 kilograms (kg) of narcotics, with an estimated local street value of some GY$429,797,900.
Among the narcotics destroyed by fire were 81. 2678 kg of cocaine, 1,161 .767 kg of cannabis, 0. 214 kg of methamphetamine, and some 0. 1 kg of crystal meth.