Mark Bas­sant

Lead Ed­i­tor, In­ves­tiga­tive Desk

Al­most one week af­ter Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers found $.3 mil­lion in co­caine hid­den in pre­served fruits at the T&T Na­tion­al Mail Cen­tre in Pi­ar­co, they have made an even big­ger dis­cov­ery over the last three days amount­ing to close to TT$5m in co­caine hid­den in var­i­ous pack­ages des­tined for the Unit­ed States and oth­er parts of the world.

Se­nior Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion sources fa­mil­iar with the lat­est find told Guardian Me­dia that they had been mon­i­tor­ing sev­er­al sus­pi­cious pack­ages at the T&T Na­tion­al Mail Cen­tre since last Fri­day and be­gan their search then.

Dur­ing the three days up to 8.30 pm on Mon­day, Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers un­earthed close to nine kilo­grams of co­caine hid­den in sev­er­al items. The co­caine weighed ear­li­er on Mon­day, sources say, was ap­prox­i­mate­ly 6.5 kilo­grams and Fri­day’s seizure was es­ti­mat­ed to be close to three kilo­grams. The es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of one kilo­gram of co­caine is ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$80,000, so the find amounts to close to US$720,000 or TT$4.8m.

But most in­ter­est­ing­ly, the co­caine was hid­den in in­ven­tive ways ac­cord­ing to sources.

Pic­tures ex­clu­sive­ly ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia showed co­caine hid­den in beene balls, bot­tles of chan­na, speak­er box­es, car parts, cof­fee beans, co­conut milk sweets and even fish­ing lines. Sources said they al­so found quan­ti­ties of co­caine hid­den in ham­mocks.

Most of the pack­ages, sources said, were des­tined for var­i­ous parts of the US but some were al­so to be sent to oth­er parts of the world, in­clud­ing Eu­rope.

This sec­ond co­caine find comes just over a week and a half af­ter Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers and the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU) made a sig­nif­i­cant arms and am­mu­ni­tion dis­cov­ery at a ware­house in Cou­va last Mon­day night, which fol­lowed an­oth­er large arms and am­mu­ni­tion find two Fri­days ago the bond at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Of­fi­cials at TT Post had is­sued a re­lease af­ter the first co­caine dis­cov­ery at the T&T Na­tion­al Mail Cen­tre last week com­mend­ing their staff and Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion for their dili­gent work.

Sources be­lieve a par­tic­u­lar syn­di­cate is re­spon­si­ble for this lat­est co­caine find and in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.

No ar­rests have yet been made for the first co­caine find last week.