Efforts underway to ascertain owner of go-fast boat

Last Updated on Tuesday, 22 December 2015, 20:02 by GxMedia

Authorities hope to use the engine numbers of a go-fast boat that was found on the North West District (NWD) beach to track down its owners because the vessel was used in illegal activity, Head of the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU), James Singh said Tuesday.

“It is our belief that this vessel was engaged in some illegal type of activity- as you can see there is a deliberate attempt to camouflage the vessel and also there are some modifications to this vessel which increases its cargo space so whatever it was destined to carry or was carrying, it was basically modified to carry that,” he told Demerara Waves Online News.

Singh said the numbers of the three engines, totaling 350 Horse Power,  and other information would be used to ascertain the identity and use of the vessel whose dimensions are 42 feet long, nine feet wide and eight feet high. “We have the engine numbers, we have other checks we’ll do to see who may have purchased the boat, who the boat was registered to, was the boat reportedly stolen..,” he said.

The anti-narcotics chief said the commercially-made boat was modified. He reasoned that the absence of any other form of identity of the vessel was deliberate in case it was found by law enforcement agents.

Unlike the semi-submersible vessel that was made under a thick forest canopy in the NWD last year, Singh said the go-fast boat would not be sent overseas for further analysis.

Deputy Coast Guard Commander, Orin Porter said the vessel was spotted November 25, 2015 beached on Tiger Beach about 40 miles from the mouth of the Waini River. There,  the boat was covered with branches and stripped of its navigational equipment.

“Work was done to ensure that the vessel was not used by anyone,” he told reporters.

The GDF and CANU officials said nothing illegal was found aboard the go-fast boat and no one was questioned because there were no persons in the vicinity.

The GDF is expected to explore the possibility of using the go-fast boat.

Go-fast boats are usually used by South American cocaine traffickers to move large amounts of illegal cargo to the Caribbean and North America.