New suitcase scanner to boost drug fight at Guyana’s main airport

Amid a spike in drug seizures at the Cheddi Jagan Airport and evidence that several other shipments leave the country undetected, the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) on Tuesday announced that it was installing a new suitcase scanner at the country’s main terminal in the new year.
GRA Commissioner General Khurshid Sattaur noted in a press release that the equipment has already been procured. Though different in nature, the x-ray scanner which targets imports will complement the existing scanner which targets the export of containerised cargo, particularly those destined for the United States of America, Sattaur said.
“This one will be for small packages – mainly for suitcase traders and commercial goods brought in suitcases,” the commissioner general explained, noting that many persons try to deceive Customs at the airport by concealing commercial items in their suitcases. The scanner is expected to enhance revenue collection by detecting these items.
Last year, the GRA commissioned the US$1 million container scanner located in the compound of the Guyana National Shipping Company.  GRA had said then that the introduction of the scanner came about after a re-assessment of the tax body’s mandate as it relates to the operations of Customs, which was first revenue collection-based.  The issue of drug lords using the export sector to ship drugs to the United States was a major one, which forced GRA to upgrade its services and change its tactics, to keep its good name.
“This new technology should help to clean up our act in terms of having drugs found. Even though there is a 99 per cent clean record, just one with drugs spoils the image,” Sattaur said back in June 2011.
For the year already, there have been a number of cocaine busts at the CJIA. Ranks of the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) on November 9 intercepted a New York-bound Guyanese with 2.66 kilograms of cocaine at the CJIA.
Dave Gavin Welcome, 42, was an outgoing passenger on a Caribbean Airlines 524 flight destined for the John F Kennedy Airport when the illegal substance was unearthed in false walls of his suitcase. A few hours later, he confessed his guilt and was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. The Lot 665 East Ruimveldt resident, according to CANU officials, has been under police radar for some time.
Then on September 24, a United States citizen was nabbed as he was about to board a Caribbean Airlines 484 flight to New York. Andrew Shawn Glasgow, 25, of 300 Hawthorne Avenue, New York was arrested by members of the Police Anti Narcotics Unit with 4.1 kilograms of the illicit substance about 03:30h.  According to an airport official, suspicious elements were detected by police ranks during the scanning process which prompted the officials to conduct a search on the luggage when the drug was unearthed in false bottoms.