The Customs Department today busted a shipment of well over ten million pseudo ephedrine pills. The pills aren’t new in the country, in fact they’ve been sitting in two containers in the Port Compound for 20 days. But just before midday the Customs officers wrenched off the lock for the first container and it didn’t take long before they came across literally millions of pseudo ephedrine tablets. Keith Swift has the story.
Keith Swift Reporting,
There are an estimated five million pills in these 40 boxes. That’s millions of these: the over the counter cold medication, Contac, and even millions more of these unlabelled small and medium sized tablets. The pills have one thing
in common, and this test verifies, they all contain the banned substance pseudo-ephedrine.
Colin Griffith, Head of Examination and Valuation Unit
“They all contain ephedrine. We have Contac cold medicine that contains pseudo-ephedrine. The other two tablets are written in Chinese but the tests have confirmed that they do contain pseudo-ephedrine.”
Keith Swift,
Do you have an idea of how much this is worth?
Colin Griffith,
“The value that has been given to us by our counterparts is that it ranges from $2 to $4 per pill.”
Keith Swift,
That’s a lot of money somebody is losing.
Colin Griffith,
“Well of course somebody is losing.”
The boxes of pills were found hidden in the back of this container which had been sitting in the Port Compound for 20 days.
Colin Griffith,
“We noticed that two shipments consigned to a company GE Logistics, which was previously known as Me-Agape was sitting in the Port Compound for about twenty days. We then instructed our investigators to communicate with the principals of Me-Agape to have them come and clear their shipments. Contact was made with the Customs broker that normally clears shipment for Me-Agape
and he assured us that he would communicate with the principal. They communicated with the investigator last night saying that the shipment does not belong to them and it is based on that information we have decided to open the shipments that were dubiously consigned to those companies.
It was manifested as general merchandise, the examination reveal there was some forty cases containing pseudo-ephedrine tablets which were placed at the head of the container. We had general merchandise mostly in the area, there are clothing, watches, bags, and head wear that were in the container.”
The containers were consigned to a company in the free zone which is owned by a Mexican businessman. He has disclaimed ownership of the shipment and Griffith says there is no evidence to suggest otherwise.
Colin Griffith,
“The owners of the company said that they did not order any and if you recognize Keith last week these perpetrators have used the reputable name of Reimer’s Field Mill to bring in a shipment also to which they convinced Customs officers to forge documents so they have changed the game on us and they are now using legitimate importers. Me-Agape is a company that normally imports to the Free Zone and we’ve never had any instance of any kind of infraction with Me-Agape.”
Keith Swift,
You say the container was here for 20 days, do you think the importer abandoned it because all the attention these illegal importations are getting?
Colin Griffith,
“Definitely. We find that containers will be abandoned and in the
case of Monte Criste they would probably try to breach the Port perimeter to get their goods so to me, honestly I believe we are winning.”
Winning a war - which Gillett and Police Commissioner Gerald Westby say is just beginning.
Gerald Westby, Commissioner of Police
“We have an ongoing investigation and this will all fall into the investigation. It is an ongoing investigation and the volume of pills being found at the Customs begs us to seriously look at the entire process and see how best we can improve because these people seem determined to use the Port.”
Colin Griffith,
“We’ve had some failures because officers have decided to go the avenue of economic values instead of moral value and there really isn’t anything more we can do about that. Since the incident of last week, we have streamlined our procedures, we have amended some of our documentation and we are trying to make it as difficult as possible. But lo and behold the Customs Department is working very hard to fight this problem. We believe that they are in the courting and definitely they will try to contact more Customs officers but I would say we are trying to put our system in place that would make it very difficult to ever happen.”
Keith Swift,
Are we going to see an arrest?
Gerald Westby,
“Well we have seen arrests, Customs officers being arrested, and we are looking at some of the companies, but the investigation is still fluid and it is not an overnight investigation so just give us some time and we will see some arrests.”
The pills will be moved to a secure location and subsequently destroyed by the Police Department.
Customs collector Colin Griffith says among the 80 boxes in the 2 containers, there are well over ten million pills and the price on the market is between $2 and $4 per pill. So if you do the math it is between twenty and forty million dollars. It however is not the largest single pseudo-ephedrine bust. The largest was in august when eleven million pills were found in a container a gang of thieves tried to steal. Those pills were destroyed, and the same goes for these ones. The clothes and merchandise will either be auctioned or donated to the needy.
The Customs Department is also bragging about the busting three containers - each loaded with $4 million in counterfeit Marlboro cigarettes. The company that imported it is called Skyline.
Police today also confirmed that they’ve caught up with Howell Hutchinson. He is the man who allegedly drove out of the Customs compound last week with the illegally cleared container. Yesterday, he surrendered to police in the company of his attorney Elson Kaseke. He hasn’t been charged but police say that more than likely he will be. Police are also investigating the man who hired him to buy the two head days earlier, as well as the roaring creek man who loaded the container. But the container has still not been found.
