Colombians loosen hold on Jamaica as drug transit hub
Published:Thursday | June 9, 2022 | 12:11 AMKimone Francis/Senior Staff Reporter
Colombian cartels are believed to have reduced their leverage of Jamaica as a trans-shipment hub for illicit drugs into the United States, but that development has not pushed the partnership off the radar of the police, Major General Antony Anderson has said
The police commissioner said Colombia, a major drug producer south of the island, supports assessments that there are ongoing illicit ties between the two countries.
“We share a border with Colombia, [so] it’s not going to be surprising if there are forays upwards to Jamaica, not to fill a local market, but for onward trans-shipment to other countries,” Anderson said during a press briefing.
“We have been interrupting some of those in Jamaica, and obviously some when they arrive in the US, having been transmitted through Jamaica. It is something that we look at all the time. It’s not something that we take for granted,” said Anderson.
Referencing the heydays of the 1980s when local criminals and their Colombian counterparts trafficked thousands of kilograms of cocaine between the two countries, Anderson said that interceptions had resulted in a significant decline in drug trans-shipment.
A 2012 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime policy paper concluded that Jamaica had declined in importance as a key transit country for drugs from Colombia to the US and the UK.
It said estimates of the cocaine flow through Jamaica dropped from 11 per cent of the US supply in 2000 to two per cent in 2005 and one per cent in 2007.
It said that this is reflected in declining seizures in Jamaica and declining arrests and convictions of Jamaican drug traffickers in the US.
Despite this, the police commissioner has said that lawmen cannot rest easy.
His caution followed the seizure of 140 parcels of cocaine, with an estimated street value of more than $300 million, in April.
Gleaner sources had indicated at that time that the drugs were being shipped from Colombia to a gang operating in Whitehouse, Westmoreland.
Two weeks ago, two Jamaicans were among 19 people jailed on a range of criminal charges for their alleged involvement in a “sophisticated” international narcotics scheme.
The scheme operated in Jamaica, Colombia, and the US.
It was allegedly used to launder approximately US$6 million in Colombian drug proceeds through banks in the Caribbean, the US, and Europe.
Three Colombians, one of whom has challenged the constitutionality of the US’s Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act after being slapped with a 10-year sentence, were said to be intercepted en route to Jamaica with cocaine.
Deputy Commissioner Fitz Bailey has said that the police have not seen a deepening of relations between local and Colombian criminals, but Anderson said that the police remain cautious.
“We must never rest on our laurels. We know that the means of getting money is the key to organised crime,” said Anderson.
“One of those is going to be the drug trafficking ... . And that is what has impacted the availability of weapons and the high numbers of rounds.”