Airport staff with access to air-side under probe for collusion with drug traffickers

The management of the Cheddi Jagan International Airport has launched an investigation to identify and root out a number of persons who are suspected to be colluding with drug traffickers and are using their air-side access at the airport to facilitate the movement of cocaine from the terminal building onto the airport tarmac and ultimately the aircraft.

This was confirmed by a senior source who spoke with BIG Smith Crime Watch on Thursday afternoon.

According to what we were able to confirm, the persons who are employed at the facility have been in contact and does have relationships with ex-employees who are either directly involved in the drugs underworld or who might have connections to same.

On Tuesday the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit conducted a raid at the house at Timehri where four men were arrested and a fire extinguisher suspected to be filled with cocaine, was removed from the premises. A further examination revealed that there was 1.890 kilograms of cocaine concealed in the extinguisher.

BIG Smith Crime Watch was able to ascertain that two of the men arrested on Tuesday, Anthony Collins and Dinesh Dias who are among the four to appear in court on Friday, were employees of the Cheddi Jagan International Airport.

Another of the arrested is Seenarine Mathura according to records, was listed as the owner of the Tower Hotel some years ago. In retrospect however, when the hotel was thought to have been sold to Mathura a few years ago, it was actually transferred to by the previous owner. It was Mathura who actually sold the hotel to its current owner Shervington ‘BIG Head’ Lovell, after he, Mathura, operated the hotel for a few years.

Lovell was arrested in Jamaica in 2018 and extradited to the US for smuggling cocaine into that country. Mathura is also connected to New Line Aqua Farm in West Demerara, a facility which owned by the former owner of the Tower Hotel.