- More than 200 pounds of cocaine can’t just disappear overnight, can it?
The crooks fought the law, and the law won! Now, the criminals will surely end up behind bars while their ill-gotten loot will be…
Hey, wait, they just walked out of jail. And where did all the booty go?
A recent drug bust in the Caribbean island nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines played out along these lines. The police said they stopped a group of smugglers with hundreds of pounds of cocaine on their ship.
Per usual protocol, the cops arrested the people on the ship and confiscated the drugs. And that’s the last usual part of this story.
A bit more than a week later, the suspects have reportedly not been charged. As far as anyone seems to be aware, they’ve vanished into thin air after the police claimed there wasn’t enough evidence – despite the “large quantity” of cocaine they got caught with.
By the way, where is that cocaine? Again, nobody seems to know.
Were there even any smugglers in the first place?
Drug Route Pit Stop
First things first, in case you’re not intimately familiar with the Top 15 smallest countries in the world, you might wonder where St. Vincent and the Grenadines are. This small nation consists of a handful of islands in the Caribbean, some 150 miles off the coast of Venezuela.
The country’s economy is mostly dependent on agriculture. St. Vincent can proudly boast of being the largest producer of arrowroot in the world, and the islands also grow a bunch of other exotic fruits and vegetables.
What the islands do not do is manufacture narcotics (and good on them for not doing so). However, St. Vincent has a problem of being a pit stop on multiple common maritime drug smuggling routes out of South America to northern markets.
And that brings us to the story of the day.
Major Drug Arrest
According to what little information we have, the Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force (RSVGPF) stopped a yacht sailing through Vincentian waters. The interception took place off Canouan Island, one of the nation’s southernmost islands.
The stopped vessel was a small yacht dubbed M.V. Essex Girl. Local Vincentian media reported that it was on its way to an undisclosed location in the Grenadines when its engine broke down, and it drifted ashore.
The ship’s crew allegedly emptied the ship and stored their cargo elsewhere while the engine was repaired. They then put their coke back aboard and sailed off.
However, the cops had been tipped off about their smuggling trips during the engine work. They stopped the boat and found 3-5 people on board. Their cargo consisted of a reported 80-90 pounds of cocaine.
“A large quantity of suspected cocaine has been recovered, and several persons are currently in police custody. Police personnel are processing the scene and securing the exhibits as investigations continue,” the RSVGPF said at the time.
‘I Have to Have Hard Evidence’
So, the police arrested the yacht’s crew and confiscated the drugs. Then the radio fell silent for more than a week.
That was unusual, as the RSVGPF typically reports at least the suspects’ nationalities. This time, however, no information came out, and even the number of arrested people is unknown.
The public of St. Vincent wasn’t happy with the silence, and there were public demands for details. Finally, the RSVGPF held a press conference – but it only raised more questions.
Trevor “Buju” Bailey, the acting commissioner of police, told the press that none of the people caught on the yacht had been charged with crimes. Not only that, they weren’t even under arrest anymore.
Bailey cited the lack of evidence as the reason for releasing the suspected drug smugglers.
“I cannot take someone before the court on mere suspicion. I have to have evidence, hard evidence,” he said.
You’d imagine the 90 pounds of cocaine would be pretty hard evidence. Oh, my bad; the amount had now increased to nearly 210 pounds (95 kg), according to Bailey.
So why isn’t the cocaine acceptable as evidence of drug smuggling? Nobody knows, as Bailey didn’t provide any further details about the case. Among the missing information is what happened to all the cocaine.
The lack of transparency has caused uproar among the Vincentine public. Many commenters online have taken this as a further sign of mismanagement in the police force, which is already struggling with high gun violence.
“[This] information gap reasonably creates the appearance of weak accountability,” one concerned commenter wrote.
Another quipped that perhaps the cocaine had been mixed into cement to build houses on the islands. Perhaps there’s another scandal going on regarding construction that we’re not aware of.