PARAMARIBO--Police in Suriname have confiscated a 2,500-kilogram cocaine shipment in Paramaribo. Entrepreneur Nitender Oemrawsingh, who owns Nivash Rice, has been arrested.
The major coke bust was made on Tuesday, at the Jules Sedney port in the southern district of the capital. The drugs were hidden in eight containers filled with rice, awaiting loading at the harbour from where they were destined for France, through Guadeloupe.
Police report that members of the port’s Security Department stumbled upon the shipment during their regular controls, after which they alerted the Narcotics Brigade of the Police Corps Suriname KPS.
Police remained tight-lipped on the investigation and promised more information when it becomes prudent, but news reports say that businessman Nitender Oemrawsingh, the consignee of the shipment, has been arrested by police in district Nickerie, in the west of the country, where most rice farms are located. The rice apparently originated from Oemrwasingh’s refinery. A private customs consultant has also been arrested and another rice exporter is also in police’s crosshairs, it has been reported.
Police have hinted that more arrests will likely follow. The containers had already been screened and sealed off by customs before the contraband was found.
Authorities stepped up controls of containers at the Jules Sedney harbour in October 2017, after several record drug busts there that year. In February, July and October 2017, police found more than 3,000 kilograms at the harbour. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) assisted Suriname in setting up the 100 per cent controls of all containers, cars and other vehicles that pass through the main port in Paramaribo.
