Police announced on Thursday, September 22, a narcotics raid in which they seized $7 million worth of ganja, a go fast boat, engines and other items. There was no arrest. And that’s the main issue with the police story. They should be ashamed of themselves to tell the Jamaican people that in the operation they made no arrests.
Consider this: as far as we are aware, the police got information from citizens about this “suspicious” boat off the coast of Drax Hall, an area that is populated, fronted by several hotels, resorts and attractions. This is not a section of the Clarendon or St Elizabeth coast fronted by vegetation and wilderness.
So, it ought to have been entirely possible and probable that the police should have arrested someone or a few people for this load. We know this: the people who prepared this load, obviously for export, had no intention of wasting it. They had the drug packaged, with a lot of effort and ready for shipment. They engaged their resources, a 30-ft boat which itself required money and they had two engines. So they didn’t anchor the boat just for the police to seize it.
So what about the intelligence unit and the undercover unit, in the police force? You mean the police couldn’t have got one or two jet skis, common in the area and carried out their surveillance, without drawing the attention of the ganja exporters. You mean, they couldn’t get men or women on the beach at Jewel Dunn’s River and Riu, Mammee Bay and other beach front properties and wait a little for the owners or operatives to come back to the boat? Why couldn’t they wait and watch and then pounce when the time came.
Former narcotics officers are shaking their heads about this cock up. How could this be?
Well now at least the police have the loot with a lot of fingerprints all over them and over some of the personal items on the boat. The police can’t tell us that the boat was not registered to anyone. It must have been. So whose boat is it? Are they going to ask the owner what his boat was doing out there moored, with 1,700 pounds of ganja. After they have interviewed the owners – and told us – they can take action against whoever was in charge of this operation. It made the police look foolish and inept.
