By Latrishka Thomas
It’s just a few days into the third month of the year, however local law enforcement agencies have already executed quite a number of drug busts to date.
Commissioner of Police Atlee Rodney told Observer that in January 93 pounds of cannabis were intercepted at either the General Post Office, the Deep Water Harbour, or the VC Bird International Airport, while February, the shortest month of the year, saw 183 pounds of marijuana being seized.
Rodney said he is concerned about “what kind of year we are gonna have” given the high number of drug seizures already.
The top cop also told yesterday’s Connecting with Dave Lester Payne show that capturing perpetrators of these crimes is difficult.
“Most of the items are coming with fictitious names. There are a few cases where we had persons arrested because we had to do the surveillance and see that they took them, but most of them you are just meeting them in the shed.
“You open a barrel and the name does not match any name in Antigua; sometimes they have a number that does not exist,” he shared.
He also disclosed that some of the drugs are coming through couriers.
“We have had discussions with some of those couriers as to what is happening especially. We had incidents where we actually had to speak and find out what is happening on the other side because those packages are coming from other countries. It is a matter of concern,” he said.
When asked why the packages are not monitored to see who collects them, Rodney remarked that it is “easily said but not easily done”.
He added, “We have tried that and it didn’t work because you don’t know who is responsible. It might be somebody on the inside, it might be somebody on the outside.”