The Tribune

TWO Jamaican men were arrested on Christmas Eve in Inagua after they were found with more than $600,000 worth of suspected marijuana.

Police said around 4.30pm on December 24 officers from the Drug Enforcement Unit and the United States Coast Guard — who were in the area of Great Inagua on routine air patrols — observed a speed boat beached on the northern shoreline of Great Inagua.

 The officers became suspicious when they noticed two men standing near the boat, police said.

 “As a result, the patrolling aircraft landed in the vicinity of the speed boat, the officers disembarked and approached the suspects,” a police crime report noted.

 “When the officers arrived at the boat one of them noticed a number of packages a short distance away from the males in low bushes.”

 Police searched the area and found 34 large packages, some of them wrapped in black plastic and the others in white bags.

 A field sampling of the content of some of the packages revealed a grassy substance, suspected to be marijuana.

 The suspects, who are both Jamaican men ages 50 and 34, were arrested for being in possession of dangerous drugs and other related offences.

 The drugs seized in Inagua weighed 611 pounds with an estimated street value of $611,000, police said.

 Friday’s seizure came two days after police arrested two men from Venezuela who landed at the Crooked Island Airport after 11pm on Wednesday with more than $25m of suspected cocaine.

 Assistant Superintendent Audley Peters said officers on Crooked Island became suspicious when they heard the sound of an aircraft hovering around the island’s airport after 11.45pm.

 When officers arrived at the airport, they saw a plane parked on the runway.

 ASP Peters said the officers approached the plane and saw two men running from the aircraft, leaving the door open.

 Police pursued the suspects, captured them and took them back to the plane, where officers found 44 black bags containing suspected cocaine.

 ASP Peters said police do not know where the plane came from.

 However, the suspects are from Venezuela; one is 29 and the other is in his 60s.

 When asked how the men were able to land at the airport, he said, “The Crooked Island Airport is not a 24-hour airport. Individuals have their skills whether it be illegal or legal in the world of aircraft so perhaps those individuals would have used their skills, knowing that our airport is not a 24-hour manned airport. . . or persons who may have been on the island assisting them may have placed markers at various points to guide them. So, all of that is not determined at the moment. . .”

 Police said 1,254 kilos of cocaine were seized, weighing 3,142 pounds with an estimated street value of $25,080,000.

 An investigation is continuing.