Richard Rudolph Gayle, 38, was yesterday apprehended at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA)

Richard Rudolph Gayle, 38, was yesterday apprehended at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) at approximately 5:00 hours by the Police Narcotics Unit, under the suspicion that he had swallowed pellets containing cocaine.
The suspected cocaine swallower, Richard Rudolph Gayle, who was apprehended at the CJIA yesterday.Gayle is currently under police guard at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) after X-rays of his abdomen showed several foreign objects in his stomach.The Jamaican, who arrived in Guyana on February 26, was an outgoing passenger at the CJIA bound for Trinidad and Tobago when he was searched by the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU). Their initial search discovered no drugs on his person, but Gayle was later detained by the Police Narcotics Unit.
Gayle is said to be cooperating with the police, as he has taken the laxatives necessary to help him pass the pellets out of his system.A few weeks ago another Jamaican national, Errol Barrette, spent three days at the GPHC before finally excreting the pellets containing the illicit substance. He was lucky that none of the pellets containing the drug had ruptured in his stomach.Over the last few years, several drug mules have died when the pellets, containing the drugs they were trafficking, burst while still inside them.

Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan was arrested in Trinidad and shipped by agents of the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to the USA

Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan was arrested in Trinidad and shipped by agents of the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to the USA for allegedly masterminding the shipment of illegal drugs to that country.According to US court documents, Khan may have ordered almost 200 murders in Guyana. During a media conference, President Bharrat Jagdeo had stressed that if there is any credence to the claims of killings, it would mean that several unsolved cases will more than likely be resolved.Expressing the hope that the US will assist Guyana in getting to the bottom of allegations, he revealed that the Commissioner of Police, Henry Greene, had confirmed that the information about the alleged 200 killings had not been passed by the US to Guyana as yet.
The President emphasized that while Khan was not in Guyana’s jurisdiction, Guyana “…have an obligation that, if presented with any information by the US Government about Roger Khan’s involvement in any criminal act, that would be pursued by our law enforcement agency…That is my position.”To date, Roger Khan has been fingered in the US court as having ordered at least two murders, namely the execution of Donald Allison, a boxing coach of Agricola; and Devendra Persaud, a businessman who has been fingered in the killing of a local pilot from Ogle.The U.S. Government intends to establish that Persaud was charged with smuggling and conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, and ultimately cooperated with U.S. law enforcement.
The prosecution believes that individuals in the cocaine industry in Guyana, including Khan, suspected that Persaud was cooperating with U.S. law enforcement.
Additionally, the Government will try to establish at trial that one nickname for Khan was “Shortman.”

Michelle McKenzie sentenced to four years in prison

Michelle McKenzie of Negril, Westmoreland was fined 860,000 Guyanese dollars, the value of the drugs she was caught with.One of three Jamaicans held with cocaine in a dart board at Cheddi Jagan International Airport in Guyana last Friday was sentenced to four years in prison on Tuesday.The Court ordered that she be deported at the end of her sentence.McKenzie, who is four months pregnant, pleaded guilty to having trafficked 956 grams of cocaine.…McKenzie left behind a two-year-old child in Jamaica

Do you want to be randomly selected to become a drug mule by having cocaine slipped into your suitcase

Is it safe to visit Guyana when on leaving you run the risk of being randomly selected to become a drug mule by having cocaine slipped into your suitcase at the airport? There have been at least three known instances of this occurring over the past year or so and a couple a few years earlier. Quite possibly, knowing the tenacity of drug smugglers, there have been others, which managed to escape the notice of the authorities.
Some years ago, after the first couple of incidents, one airline began ensuring security by plastic-wrapping travellers' luggage. The others have been slow to follow suit and the government has not seen it fit to date to acquire and operate the necessary equipment, which could be a revenue earner as in other countries a fee is charged for this service.
Is it safe when you could again randomly be targeted at the airport to be robbed, trailed to your home or hotel or an appropriately lonely stretch of road and be set upon by gun-toting bandits? This has happened countless times over the years. That there has not been such an incident in the very recent past is not because of any action by law enforcement authorities. Rather, it's because travellers have become much more alert and employ subterfuges to confuse any would-be ambusher.
Is it safe, when like the Chinese team whose expertise built the Skeldon diesel plant or the Cuban doctors who contribute in the public health care system you could be attacked and robbed by thieves with little or no redress by the authorities?
Could it possibly be safe when you might be at a public place, which turns out to be the wrong place at the wrong time? Tuesday night's shooting near Bonny's Supermarket might have been an isolated incident, but it raises the scary 'what if' question. Any of a number of foreigners resident here or visiting might have been at the supermarket that evening and could very well have been injured or killed, not because they were deliberately targeted, simply because they happened to be there.
As it is, two local men were injured - apart from the targeted individual who was killed - and several other people traumatised. Perish the thought, but there could even have been children in the supermarket at the time. In Wednesday morning's incident, where bandits targeted a Moleson Creek-bound minibus and killed its driver in an apparent attempt to rob its passengers, a small child was reportedly involved.