Two weeks after a Guyanese woman and an American man attempted to sneak out cocaine in achar; a 41-year-old Canadian national was intercepted on Wednesday morning at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) trying to smuggle out the illicit substance in a similar manner.
The woman was intercepted by members of the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) as she was checking-in on a Caribbean Airlines Flight, BW 525 destined for Canada about 05:00h.
CANU head James Singh confirmed that the woman had seven kilos of cocaine stashed in several packets of achar.
According to information received, while the woman’s suitcase was being scanned, a blackish substance in the achar was noticed, and taking into consideration the last incident, the suitcase was pulled and searched, leading to the discovery of small packets containing the cocaine.
Ranks informed the woman of their suspicions and she was escorted to the search area where she was interrogated. She was then taken to CANU headquarters where the cocaine was extracted and when weighed amounted to seven kilograms.
Earlier in the month, Winston Blake, 78, who stayed at Meadowbrook, South Ruimveldt, Georgetown, was intercepted with 9.6kg of cocaine while Guyanese, Sadika Odie, 38, of Kitty, Georgetown was intercepted with 10.45Kg of cocaine extracted from several packets of achar at the CJIA.
This publication was told that upon the arrest of the couple, they told CANU ranks that someone had given them the achar to take for relatives of their friends. However, after closely inspecting the achar that was stored in zip lock bags, it was clear that the perpetrators used brown scotch tape to wrap the cocaine in balls and then place them into the tamarind achar to make them look like seeds.
Blake and Odie were outgoing passengers in a U.S.-bound BW 526 flight to John F Kennedy Airport. While their luggage was being scanned, the illegal substance was spotted and this prompted the ranks of the drug enforcement unit to question the man and woman.
During the interrogation, the achar was searched and the drug was found, but the couple denied having any knowledge about the cocaine and claimed that they were given it to drop off to relatives of their friends. A few names have been called and CANU is pursuing them.
The duo were subsequently charged and remanded to prison for the offence of possession of narcotics for the purpose of trafficking.
