Lisa Ramnarine, the 23-year-old Guyanese TikToker who was busted while attempting to smuggle $560,000 worth in cocaine at DHL in Georgetown, has been refused bail again and remanded.
Ramnarine of Hague, West Coast Demerara (WCD), made her second appearance last week before Principal Magistrate Sherdel Isaacs-Marcus at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts.
Remanded: Lisa Ramnarine
Her case comes up again on August 17. She had pleaded not guilty to the charge which alleged that on June 7 at DHL’s Fifth Street, Alberttown, Georgetown offices, she had 540 grams of cocaine in her possession for the purpose of trafficking.
Ranks of the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) arrested the young woman who attempted to ship the cocaine hidden in a Havan Kund.
Reports are that CANU officers, acting on information received, went to the DHL Headquarters and intercepted a parcel containing a Hindu Havan Kund and other religious items.
“The officers examined the items and discovered a hidden compartment within the Kund, which was suspected to contain narcotics. Further examinations determined that a substance suspected to be cocaine was concealed within the religious item,” the anti-narcotics agency said.
It was reported that the sender’s information was retrieved from the package, and this led CANU ranks to Ramnarine, who was arrested and escorted to CANU Headquarters, where the item was dismantled in her presence and the suspected narcotics were revealed.
CANU had said the cocaine had a street value of US$2500-US$2700 but would have been worth more had it reached its intended destination.
In February 2021, one person was arrested after CANU ranks had unearthed 294 grams of cocaine concealed in a box at the DHL Alberttown, Georgetown location.
Acting on information received, the ranks conducted a search at the shipping business, during which they discovered a multi-coloured floral box.
Upon checking the box, the cocaine was found in a false wall at the bottom.
One person was arrested in relation to that discovery.
During that same month, a Christianburg, Linden couple was arrested for attempting to ship cocaine concealed in fudge via DHL. Shaka Nunes, a 36-year-old labourer, had pleaded guilty to a narcotics trafficking charge and had received a four-year sentence along with a fine of $1.7 million.
The charge against his wife was subsequently withdrawn.
It was reported that on February 15, 2021, Nunes had given his wife a box filled with several snacks and asked her to ship it to the United States of America (USA).
The DHL Georgetown branch summoned CANU about the suspicious package that had arrived from its Linden branch. This resulted in an inspection, and the field test conducted on the contents of the box revealed that the fudge contained 3.692 kilograms of cocaine.
As a result, CANU ranks visited the mailing address in Linden, where they met Nunes’s wife, who told them that her husband had given her the package to post. (G1)
