Over $188M in seized drugs destroyed by CANU, Police
Millions of dollars’ worth in illegal drugs and illicit substances that had been kept in storage by both the Guyana Police Force’s Narcotics Branch and the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) were destroyed on Saturday morning at Yarrowkabra, Linden-Soesdyke Highway during a destruction exercise sanctioned by the Public Security Ministry.
CANU and GPF ranks taking the drugs to be destroyed
Head of the Police Narcotics Branch, Senior Superintendent of Police Corlay Simon told the media that 74.74kg of cocaine with a street value of $67,498,347 and 373.272kg of cannabis worth $57,483,888 was destroyed by the Police Force.
He explained that these substances were already used as evidence in matters that have reached finality in the courtrooms.
Meanwhile, Deputy Head of CANU Lesley Ramlall stated that the agency destroyed more than cocaine and cannabis that it had been storing.
“CANU is destroying 30.7kg of cocaine and 210.2kg of cannabis today (Saturday). In addition to that, there were 304 grams of heroin and also 602 grams of an unknown substance. With the help of the National Forensic Lab and our overseas counterparts, we could not have determined what that substance was.”
The street value of the cocaine and cannabis destroyed by CANU was $29.1 million and $33, 600,000 respectively.
According to CANU’s Deputy Head, the unknown substance had been seized in March last year at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA).
The discovery was made when a teenager, who was heading to the United States, was checked by security at the CJIA before boarding the US-bound flight.
The illicit drugs and illegal substances were destroyed by way of fire by representatives from the GPF, CANU, the National Anti-Narcotics Agency (NANA) and the Guyana Forensic Science Laboratory (GFSL) in the presence of the media.
This is the second such joint operation conducted by the security forces.
The first was done five months ago, on November 9, last year, where over $513 million worth of ganja and cocaine were destroyed, also by way of fire.
