Electrician gets 3 years for cocaine found in lunch bag

Mohamed Inshan, a 53-year-old electrician of Back Street North, Old Scheme Zeelugt, East Bank Essequibo, has been slapped with a three-year sentence for trafficking over five pounds of cocaine in July 2019, after Leonora Magistrate Zamilla Ali-Seepaul found him guilty of the offence of narcotics trafficking on Thursday last.
In addition to the sentence, he has been fined $30,000.
The case made against Inshan was that on July 23, 2019, ranks of the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) were conducting surveillance exercises along the Parika Public Road, and observed a man handing over a bulky black bag to Inshan, who had then handed same to a third person, who had placed same in the back seat of a parked car.
The three men had then left the location in two vehicles, which were later intercepted by CANU ranks. In the vehicle driven by Inshan, a black bag was found in a lunch bag, and it contained two brick-shaped objects which tested positive for cocaine.
The Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) contended that Inshan and the two others were busted with 2.264kg of cocaine at Parika, East Bank Essequibo.
Inshan and his two co-accused had reportedly been placed on $500,000 bail each by the then Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan.
Inshan and three others had previously been implicated in the interception of 1.8 kilograms of cocaine at a house at Timehri Base Road, East Bank Demerara (EBD).
CANU had said its ranks had swooped down on that house and had unearthed the cocaine in a fire extinguisher. In that matter, the owner of the house, Dinesh Dias, had taken the rap and been sentenced to 48 months imprisonment and fined $15,000.
Dias, in taking the rap for the offence, had told the court that his friends did not know that the cocaine and ganja were at his house during the time of their visit.