Cutlass, improvised weapons found in Mazaruni Prison
A four-and-a-half-hour search of the Mazaruni Prison on Monday unearthed several contraband items, including seven cellular phones, a cutlass, improvised weapons, cigarette lighters, an earpiece, a cellphone battery and a charger.
Some of the items found during the prison raid at Mazaruni
The raid was reportedly conducted jointly by ranks of the Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Prison Service. Only recently, 19 cellular phones; five phone chargers; one flash drive; 15 cigarette lighters; two packs of cigarettes; five pairs of scissors; seven improvised weapons, and 774 grams of cannabis were found during a raid at the Camp Street penitentiary.
On Friday last, Director of Prisons (ag) Gladwin Samuels had stated that a rank of the Guyana Police Force had been caught in his attempt to throw a bag containing contraband items into the Holding Bay of the Lusignan Prison on the East Coast of Demerara (ECD).
The plastic bag, when examined, was found to contain one cellular phone, one cellular phone charger, and seven packs of cigarettes. The officer was detained before subsequently being handed over to an Inspector of Police and escorted to a Police station for further investigation.
Monday’s operation at the Mazaruni Prison came less than a month after a major find at the Lusignan Prison.
During the Lusignan Prison raid, razor blades, 17 phone chargers, 24 lighters, a quantity of wires, eight metal spoons, two pairs of scissors, one plastic knife, two nail clips, a quantity of Ziplock bags, 6 bottles of pepper sauce, one pack of cards, three bottles of medicine, 4 bottles of oil with suspected cannabis seeds, one memory card, three mirrors and one wristwatch were discovered.
The smuggling of contraband items into prisons remains a perennial problem within the system. Authorities have been working assiduously to curb the practice, and these efforts have resulted in several prison officers being caught facilitating the illegal trade, which is said to be “big business”.
In fact, back in July, Samuels, had disclosed during a press conference that several prison officers had been relieved of their duties after they were found to be working in collusion with each other in order to facilitate the movement of suspected contraband into the various correctional facilities.
