Lloyd Williams, Senior Associate Editor THE DIRECTOR of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has begun reviewing statements implicating a top-echelon police officer and a Superintendent, and several others of junior rank, in an operation in which they allegedly provided security for the safe transfer of a large quantity of U.S.-bound Colombian cocaine through Jamaica to the Bahamas.
The investigation focused on the quiet sea coast district of Fairy Hill, east Portland, some six miles east of Port Antonio, the parish capital, and on the activities of high-ranking and other police personnel stationed out of the parish.
At Fairy Hill, some 600 lb. of high-grade Colombian cocaine was in recent weeks transferred from a drug boat to a fortified stash house, during an operation protected by armed members of the Jamaica Constabulary under the supervision of their "Colombian bosses".
The police involved are alleged to have been paid more than US$1 million for ensuring the safe delivery of the cocaine to the stash house, its security while it was in storage there, and its unimpeded transhipment out of the island.
Police Commissioner Francis A. Forbes, who was kept abreast of the investigation, is reported to have been shocked at the level of the police officers implicated in the operation.
The Jamaican investigation of the conspiracy was assisted by drug enforcement agents from the United States, the Bahamas and Colombia.
The statements collected by the Organised Crime Unit of the Jamaica Constabulary were recently forwarded to Mr. Kent Pantry, Q.C., Director of Public Prosecutions, and he is reviewing them to determine which, if any, of the police officers named, should face criminal charges, including conspiracy to import, export and traffick in cocaine.
In an expose in January, The Sunday Gleaner reported increased involvement by Colombian and Bahamian drug traffickers in the transhipment of cocaine from South America through Jamaica and the Bahamas to the United States. It reported also, the extent to which Colombian drug traffickers had reduced their dealings with Jamaican middlemen, replacing them with Bahamians instead.
The March 1999 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, issued by the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, United States Department of State, had this to say of Jamaica:
"The GoJ (Government of Jamaica) did table in Parliament anti-corruption legislation, which is currently under debate.
"Corruption, especially among members of the security and law enforcement forces, however, remains a serious problem in Jamaica, and the GoJ has not taken strong action to prosecute corrupt individuals."
