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US-revokes-visa Interim Government
The security forces continue to carry out raids in several
other areas within the city for the missing high powered weapons. They are
also planting 'illegal substances and weapons' on some business places.
Troops
in city raid
There
was no official statement on the precision operation during which security
personnel searched the Swiss House Cambio on Water Street as helmeted
soldiers and police in battle gear took up strategic positions, guns at
the ready. Huge military trucks were positioned to block off the street as the troops moved in to cordon off the area for the search.
RAID: soldiers deployed in the military-type operation on the busy Water Street shopping area in Georgetown yesterday morning. (Cullen Bess-Nelson
photo) Police
in a statement said they conducted early morning raids in several other
areas within the city but did not mention the major Water Street
operation. Police
said areas targeted in those searches were Campbellville Housing Scheme,
Kitty, Sophia and Middle Road, La Penitence. Ten
houses were searched in those raids and 11 persons, including a female,
were held on an arrest warrant for simple larceny, robbery under arms and
other offences, police reported. They
said three suitcases with clothing and other items, a television set, a 40
HP Yamaha outboard engine and a red and black motorcycle suspected to have
been stolen or unlawfully obtained, were seized. In
the absence of any official word on the major Joint Services operation
that targeted Swiss House Cambio, there was speculation that it was
related to the search by the Joint Services for the 33 high-powered AK-47
rifles and five pistols reported stolen more than a month ago from a
storage bond in the Guyana Defence Forces (GDF) Camp Ayanganna
headquarters in Georgetown. In
an operation launched two weeks ago in and around the city, the Joint
Services targeted the Blue Iguana nightclub and two other popular city
nightspots, among other places. The
Joint Services had said that that operation, stretched over four days,
would continue in an effort to recover the AK-47s and pistols. None of the
missing guns were found in that exercise and it was not known if any was
found in yesterday’s major operation. The
joint Police and GDF release last month reported that they set up
checkpoints along the lower East Coast Demerara and Georgetown and
conducted roadblocks and cordon and search operations aimed at
apprehending criminals and seizing illegal firearms and ammunition.
Several
persons were charged after that operation for illegal possession of arms
and ammunition and other offences and Police last week issued a wanted
bulletin for businessman Roger Khan and three others saying they were
“wanted for questioning” in connection with arms, ammunition, drugs
and other illegal items found in that exercise. (See other story on page
one). The
Police and Army had also reported detaining more than 175 motor vehicles,
many of them heavily tinted and some with questionable documents. On
March 19, GDF troops and policemen swooped on all of Khan’s known
businesses in Georgetown – DreamWorks Housing Development in Garnett
Street; the Reef Club at 60, Station Street, Kitty, and the Master’s
Touch Carpet Cleaners at 2nd Street, Bel Air Village. They also searched
his private residence in Rotunda Place, D’Aguiar’s Park, on the
southern fringes of Georgetown and deployed a team to Kaow Island in the
Essequibo River, where he also owns a sawmilling operation. Cordon
and searches were also conducted at the popular Buddy’s Night Club in
Sheriff Street, where a “motor vehicle of interest” to the security
forces was seized; the also popular Avalanche Night Club in Sheriff
Street; a house at U Grove Housing Scheme, East Bank Demerara, where one
male was arrested and a quantity of military uniforms seized; and La
Chalet Country Club in Soesdyke, where one male was arrested. The
Joint Services last month said they will conduct several follow-up
operations and reiterated the determination to recover the weapons stolen
from the Army. Soldiers
and police last week searched a house in the posh Bel Air Gardens in
Georgetown where diplomats and others live but there was no official
statement on the nature of that operation. “All information will continue to be treated with the strictest of confidence and no individual or area is off limits,” the Joint Services stressed last month. day, April 02, 2006
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