An in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched fol­low­ing the dis­cov­ery of co­caine val­ued at US$200 mil­lion that was buried close to a clan­des­tine airstrip .

The dis­cov­ery was made with the help of the Unit­ed States.

Ac­cord­ing to the Cus­toms An­ti-Nar­cotics Unit (CANU) the US in­tel­li­gence as­sist­ed in lo­cat­ing and haul­ing out of 4.4 tons of co­caine worth al­most US$200 mil­lion, which was des­tined for Eu­rope, from a num­ber of pits near an il­le­gal airstrip in the Matthews Ridge area.

“The op­er­a­tion was dri­ven by in­tel­li­gence re­gard­ing il­le­gal flights in­to Guyana and was sup­port­ed by in­for­ma­tion shared with the Unit­ed States Drug En­force­ment Agency (DEA) and oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners,” CANU said in a state­ment on Sun­day, CANU’s Head James Singh told De­mer­ara Wave On­line News that the co­caine, that was found on Sat­ur­day, was des­tined to Eu­rope by ma­rine craft.

CANU said the op­er­a­tion was as­sist­ed by the Guyana De­fence Force (GDF) Spe­cial Forces Unit and this led to the dis­cov­ery of the il­le­gal airstrip.

“A sub­se­quent of the sur­round­ing area re­sult­ed in the un­earthing of 4.4 tons of sus­pect­ed co­caine,” the unit said.

The co­caine was de­stroyed at the lo­ca­tion af­ter sam­ples were tak­en.

“This seizure high­lights the Cus­toms An­ti-Nar­cot­ic Unit (CANU) and the Gov­ern­ment’s un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to com­bat­ing the nar­cotics trade in Guyana and col­lab­o­rat­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners. The Gov­ern­ment of Guyana is mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant strides to equip the Joint Ser­vices with the nec­es­sary tools to com­bat drug traf­fick­ing and oth­er il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties with­in the coun­try. Re­cent in­vest­ments in the GDF Coast Guard, Air Corps, and the Guyana Po­lice to en­hance mon­i­tor­ing of bor­der re­gions un­der­score this ded­i­ca­tion.”

So far, no ar­rests have been made .

CANU added that the seizure al­so demon­strates the con­fi­dence that the Guyanese Gov­ern­ment, in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies, and Joint Ser­vices have in CANU’s abil­i­ty to ful­fill its man­date.

CANU has al­so been lead­ing Guyana’s an­ti-nar­cotics ef­forts, re­sult­ing in pre­vi­ous seizures of air­craft, and se­mi-sub­mersibles, and the ar­rests of high-pro­file drug traf­fick­ers.

In March, the au­thor­i­ties in Guyana seized half a ton of co­caine and ar­rest­ed two Venezue­lans who were trans­port­ing it in a speed­boat along a riv­er.