FREEPORT, Grand Bahama – Marred by another drug scandal, the Freeport Container Port has been pegged as a major transshipment point for the trafficking of illegal narcotics, presenting another national security threat for The Bahamas.
Drug smugglers are making increasing use of the port, creating new security concerns at the facility which is over-booked to 2005.
A $1.2 million drug discovery at the port over the weekend was the latest in a string of seizures reported by authorities.
Acting on information received, Drug Enforcement Unit officers conducted a search of a 20ft. container on Saturday. Officers discovered two black bags, each containing 60 kilograms of suspected cocaine.
The 20 ft. container arrived at Freeport from Guayaquil, Ecuador and was bound for Spain.
The weekend discovery is one of several such seizures to have occurred at the Freeport Container Port over the past several months.
Prior to Saturday’s discovery, the most recent of these incidents occurred on February 21, where Drug Enforcement Unit officers seized $8 million worth of suspected cocaine hidden under a shipment of cocoa beans from a number of containers that arrived at the container port on board the “MSC Chiara.”
The MSC Chiara had arrived from Buena Ventura Colombia and was to be transshipped to Brussels, Belgium before arriving in Istanbul, Turkey.
Multimillion-dollar marijuana seizures have also taken place at the container port over the past several months.
It’s a growing problem that is difficult to avert, according to Chris Gray, chief executive of the harbour, airport and container port companies.
“On a transshipment business, there are a huge amount of containers and you cannot possibly track every container,” Mr. Gray told the Bahama Journal. “The last incident involving the vessel from Colombia was unfortunately adverse publicity for us, but was something that was completely out of our hands.”
According to Mr. Gray, the recent containers and their contents now under investigation are ones that were in transit and were not bound for the Bahamas as their final destination.
He said that while security measures have been put in place, a check of every container to be transshipped through the facility is not the responsibility of Container Port personnel.
“We are alert and aware at both the Container Port and the airport facilities and we are doing the best we can about such situations,” he said. “You can have as much electronic equipment as possible, but if [persons are] determined to do something, they will always find a way of doing it.”
The task of searching the containers appears to be a monumental one as the volume of containers handled at the Freeport facility matches that of the Port of Miami at about one million containers per year.
According to Prime Minister Perry Christie, further expansion of the port is underway. Mr. Christie said several months ago that with the expansion plans in progress, Freeport will in time surpass the Port of Miami in terms of total containers handled per year.
While these developments represent a major economic boost for Grand Bahama, port officials and law enforcement authorities continue to face the need for tighter security measures.
Police officials on Grand Bahama hasten to put recent drug seizures at the transshipment facility into a global perspective.
“We have to understand that these occurrences, due to the nature of the transshipment business, may have nothing to do with the Bahamas at all,” Superintendent Eugene Cartwright told the Journal. “Any container port in any part of the world faces these same risks, which is why police officials work jointly with other agencies to investigate any and all information received.”
Superintendent Cartwright, who serves as Acting Officer in Charge of administration and operations support for Grand Bahama and the Northern Bahamas, said that proper networking is the vehicle used in monitoring the vast operations of a transshipment facility.
According to Superintendent Cartwright, the recent seizures at the Freeport Container Port do not represent a growing threat to national security.
No arrests have been made in connection with the recent drug seizures at the container port.
Superintendent Cartwright explained that investigations into these cases take time and involve input from a number of other regional bodies.
“Police officials are working hard and doing the best we can in these cases,” he maintained.
The suspected narcotics seized during Saturday’s DEU search at the Freeport Container Port were flown to New Providence and a joint investigation involving the United States Drug Enforcement Agency was today underway.
By Sharon Williams, The Bahama Journal
