Region 5 being used as transshipment point for drug trafficking – Police Commander says

Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice) Police Commander, Senior Superintendent Kurleigh Simon, has expressed concern that Region Five is being used as a transshipment point for drug traffickers.

The Commander has said that, to date, a total of 62.9 kilograms of marijuana has been intercepted in Region Five, compared to more than 15,000 kilograms unearthed in bordering Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne). Several large cannabis fields have also been destroyed in Region Six communities, mostly in the Berbice River.
On Monday last, Police in Region Six unearthed some 450lbs of dried ganja and 120,000 cannabis plants, valued at $115 million, at Fort Nassau on the west bank of the Berbice River, approximately 88 kilometres upstream from New Amsterdam. A few days later, some 500,000 cannabis plants and 1000 pounds of dried ganja were again unearthed in the Berbice River. The net worth of that bust has been estimated at $2 billion.
Speaking at the launch of the Region Five Police Christmas campaign, Commander Simon admitted that much of the cannabis cultivated in Region Six is shipped through his Region. He said: “I think everyone will agree with me that Region Five doesn’t cultivate cannabis, and if it does, it is not on a large scale – for the purpose of exporting or commercial activity; but we are a transshipment point for those persons who are planting in the Berbice River and (selling) to Georgetown.”

In his opinion, the 62.9 kilograms of ganja seized in Region Five is a small amount of what is being transported out of the Berbice River. “But the fact that we were able to seize some is good,” he added.
Region Six Commander, Superintendent Jairam Ramlakhan, speaking at a similar event in Region Six, explained that not only cannabis was seized in the region, but cocaine as well. He added that, in many of the eradication exercises conducted by the Police in Region Six, firearms have been seized as well. Apart from the large amounts of ganja discovered, Superintendent Ramlakhan explained, there have been frequent cocaine busts in Region Six.
“We have been policing riverine areas, and we have been able to wreak havoc with many interceptions, which resulted in the huge figures of hundreds of thousands of plants,” he explained.
He pointed out that Berbice riverine communities are very sensitive areas, but assured that his division would continue to peruse and destroy fields of illegal plants being cultivated.
“What we are trying to do is to eliminate the amount of drugs coming into the region, which filters down to the drug pushers in our communities. I say to my officers that they must be out there daily, going after the ‘pusher-men’, for they are responsible for the distraction of our youths,” Commander Ramlakhan revealed.
He pointed out that a very large number of young persons have been arrested and placed before the courts for possession of narcotics. There have been 20 persons placed before the courts, with several having already been convicted for the possession of narcotics.