PARTICIPANTS’ PAPERS

COUNTERMEASURES AGAINST TRANSNATIONAL ORGANIZED CRIME
Komal P. Pitama*

I. INTRODUCTION
It is timely for this initiative, as we are able to share our experiences as they relate to transnational crimein Guyana with member states and vice versa, and with increased collaboration, we would be able to crack
down on these criminal rings.
With the emergence of the oil and gas sector in Guyana, there is a strong risk that conventionaltransnational crimes such as human and cocaine trafficking would become even more prevalent and also newforms of transnational crime emerge. This is as a result of the development of new sectors in the country,
higher volumes of investment and there being a large influx of foreigners which include criminal elements
who would look for the opportunity to continue their criminal trade.

II. ROLE OF THE GUYANA POLICE FORCE (GPF)
The GPF is the organization in Guyana that is enshrined with the responsibility to enforce its laws,
investigate all criminal activities and maintain public safety and security.

III. TRANSNATIONAL CRIMES IN GUYANA
There are two conventional types of transnational crimes in Guyana – human trafficking and narcotics
trafficking. Cybercrime has become more prevalent in recent times as well.

IV. HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Foreign nationals who are trafficked in Guyana usually come looking for economic opportunities as aresult of hardship in their home country. The majority of them are Venezuelan Nationals.
A. Modus
Human traffickers from Guyana would recruit victims to work in brothels disguised as night clubs fromtheir country on the condition of agreeing to be bonded until a liability is settled and withhold theiridentification documents in order to restrict their movements in the meanwhile.
Also, there were cases whereby these vulnerable groups were deceived by persons who promised them
employment opportunities but instead were exploited for cheap labour when they arrive in Guyana.
B. Trafficking Route
They are usually smuggled into Guyana through our porous borders. The main ports of entry are throughBrazil from Bonfin to Lethem border (Region 9), through Venezuela from San Martin/San Felix to Enteringbang border (Region 1) then arriving to Essequibo Coast (Region 2) and from Suriname through the Nickerie* Detective Inspector, Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Guyana Police Force, Guyana.

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to Moleson Creek border (Region 6).
It is important to note that people smuggling is not criminalized in Guyana; however, Law enforcement
utilizes legislation under the immigration act to detain and prosecute persons who enter Guyana illegally(Section 34(1)(c) of the Immigration Act, Chapter 14:02). Venezuelan nationals have refugee status and,
therefore, these immigration- related offences are not enforced on them.
C. Identifiable Trends in Human Trafficking•Over the last 3 years, 1 January 2020 – 31 December 2022, there were a total of 417 alleged victims ofsexual exploitation and 73 alleged victims of labour exploitation.

•There is a clear trend that Venezuelans are systematically trafficked as the majority of the alleged
victims were Venezuelan Nationals as they make up 367 of the 417 alleged sexual exploitation victims
and 48 of the 73 alleged labour exploitation victims over the said three-year period. This translates to88.0 per cent and 65.8 per cent, respectively. Further, there has been an increasing trend in thenumber of alleged victims of human trafficking during the three-year period moving from 121 victims
in 2020 to 122 victims in 2021 and 172 victims in 2022.

•There has been a rise in the number of alleged victims for both Brazil and Cuba totalling 15 and 16,respectively, in 2022 as compared to 2 and 6, respectively, for the sum of the two preceding years.

D. Efforts by the Guyana Police Force to Combat Human Trafficking
Given the complexity and lucrativeness of human trafficking, the Guyana Police Force has a Traffickingin-Persons Unit to deal with these crimes. The unit conducts regular operations in all regions of Guyana tocombat human trafficking by enforcing legislation under the Combatting the Trafficking-in-Persons Act 2 of2005 and other relevant legislation covering trafficking in persons related offences such as Keeping a Brothel
and Withholding of Identification Papers.
For the years 2020, 2021 and 2022, there were 39, 37 and 23 reports, respectively, of human trafficking
with a total of 490 alleged victims being contacted by the police.  However, only a total of 11 cases weremade from the total of 99 reports over the 3 years, which is a result of the lack of interest by victims to havetheir traffickers prosecuted. This is because of factors such as fear of traffickers and economic hardships they
face make them feel they have no alternative but to be exploited.
E. Case Study of a Trafficking in Persons Report
On 24 April 2021, a report of an alleged Trafficking in Persons incident was made by R.F., male of African
descent, age 28 years, a farmer of A District, PO Jamaica and C.M., male of African descent, age 30 years, afarmer of B District, PA Jamaica, both Jamaican nationals at the M Police Station. They mentioned that they
were hired by one T.B., male of African descent, aged 44 years, a farmer of Georgetown, to clean land at K,
at a cost of $5,000.00US. They claimed that arrangements were made for them by T.B. who bought theirtickets and on 11 December 2020, they travelled to Guyana. Three days after they arrived in Guyana, T.B.
took possession of their passports, which he kept in his possession and escorted them to the area at Kara
Kara, Linden, to commence working. At Kara Kara, they were given a makeshift camp and were supplied
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with food items. They stayed at this location for over four months and had no means of communication ortransportation except for when T.B. visited. They also claimed that when they completed one plot of land,
instead of being paid they were given more land to clean and were told that they needed to work harder,
but they were never paid. So, on 24 April 2021, they left the location by begging a passing boat and reported
the matter to the police. T.B. was apprehended, investigated, charged and he was sentenced to four years’
imprisonment, fined $200,000 for withholding their passports and to pay restitution in the sum of $6,300,000.
GC to the victims.
1. Challenges Encountered
After this investigation was launched, the challenge encountered was to locate the area since it was in ariverine area and the victims were not familiar so it took hours to locate the scene, and when same waslocated, it was observed that marijuana plants and compressed marijuana were found at the camp and twomarijuana fields were also found about 300 feet away from the camp which was subsequently destroyed.
During the trial, there were complaints of the lengthy period the trial was taking and at some stage victims
opted not to testify since it was alleged that the suspect would have reached out to them not to testify andthey subsequently related that preferred to be paid and return home.
2. Lessons Learned
Based on the statistics of these kinds of matters, not only females are being targeted and if the trial wasdone in a speedy process it may not have frustrated the victims. Nevertheless, by persuasion the victims
testified which resulted in a successful prosecution. Also, apart from the element of force, the element ofdeception is very effective; it can cause anyone to be a victim even the strongest man, woman or child.

V. NARCOTICS TRAFFICKING
Due to Guyana’s strategic geographical location which connects South America to the United States ofAmerica and Europe, cocaine traffickers utilize our country as a transit point to reach their final destination.
A. ModusGiven the aforementioned, traffickers from Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela load planes from thesecountries and land in our densely forested regions to offload. Afterwards, local traffickers would then conceal
the cocaine in local commodities which are then exported to the US and European markets.
B. Efforts to Combat Narcotics Trafficking in Guyana
The Guyana Police Force and the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) are the two agencies in place thatinvestigate and prosecute drug traffickers under the Narcotic Drug and Psychotropic Substances (Control)
Act Chapter 10:10
In the year 2020, there were discoveries of shipments from Guyana which were busted in these countries.
One of those is a container of scrap metal that was shipped from Guyana which had 11.5 tons of cocaine andwas seized in Belgium in November 2020.
Another discovery was in August 2020 when a rice shipment from Guyana with 1.5 tons of cocaine wasdiscovered in Germany.
A discovery was also made in March 2021 totalling 139.4KG of Cocaine which was unearthed in two ofsix containers at the Kingston Freeport Terminal Limited, Jamaica, which was en route to Haiti and China
which left Guyana port.
In 2022, there were no shipments from Guyana in which cocaine was discovered. However, a plane witha large quantity of cocaine was discovered in the years 2020 at Issano, Region 7, 2021 at Orealla, Region 6and in 2022 at Mahdia, Region 8.
C. Overview of Report
On 10 July 2022 at about 14:20 hrs, one white 182 Cessna Skyline Single Engine aircraft, with white and63

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grey stripes running along the side, landed on the Potaro Airstrip Mahdia, Region # 8, without authorization.
Police subsequently intercepted and arrested two foreign nationals, one Colombian and one Brazilian, whowere flying the aircraft containing 639.9 lbs. of cocaine and 120.5 lbs. of cannabis. The narcotics along withthe airplane were subsequently lodged into joint services custody. The 2 suspects were arrested, and an
investigation was launched. They were later charged, pleaded guilty and subsequently sentenced to four
years and six months in prison and fined $449M each.
D. Challenges Encountered and Solutions
In this drug bust involving planes and the other two incidents aforementioned, the language barrier was
an issue given that the native language of the traffickers was different from Guyana. This delayed theinvestigations as a translator was necessary to interpret evidence extracted.
Further, given that the individuals were foreign nationals, the police had no knowledge as to the twosuspects’ affiliations; therefore, it was difficult to debunk their story that they were kidnapped and forced totraffic the narcotics which would not make them criminally liable based on case law. However, with the aidof the Guyana Defence Force, we were able to extract, translate and transcribe evidence from their digital
devices which proved otherwise, and we were able to put this evidence to the perpetrators which led tothem confess to doing the act willingly. The Guyana Police Force was unable to make any further dent inthis criminal network; however, information obtained was passed to US authorities for then to continue
investigations into the criminal network.

VI. CYBERCRIME
Many private and public organizations in Guyana within the last five years have made major strides
towards the digitization of their systems and procedures. This is particularly true for the way people do theirbanking. As a result of this rapid transformation, many persons are not aware of the potential threats,making them easily vulnerable to scams (Infiltrate and manipulate).
A. ModusIn recent times, perpetrators have managed to successfully intercept communication via email between
overseas suppliers and local entities and tricked them into wiring payments for outstanding invoices to theiraccounts instead. The magnitude of these losses has been the in millions of dollars. This is known as Business
Email Compromise.
There have also been instances of debit/credit card fraud which arose as a result of e-commerce whereby
persons shopped at irreputable merchants, or they may have been tricked into participating in online
promotions/winnings which resulted in scammers obtaining card information or personal identifiable
information which enabled them to make unauthorized purchases.
B. The Guyana Police Force and Combating Cybercrime
The Guyana Police force has a Cybercrime Unit with ranks that are versed in the field of network control
and cybersecurity. However, much headway is not usually made in these cases of BEC and debit/credit cardfraud; they usually go unsolved given a number of factors:

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There is no legislation which mandates reporting by companies of a cybersecurity breach in companies
in Guyana’s legislation. Therefore, it often goes unreported and the police cannot take action.

-It is difficult for law enforcement to obtain information from local commercial banks that have stringent
privacy policies.

-Seeking mutual legal assistance from law enforcement in other countries is a time-consuming process
which can take several months.

-Guyana is yet to join the Egmont Group which is an international organization of Financial Intelligence
Units. This makes it nearly impossible to trace the proceeds of these crimes overseas.

PARTICIPANTS’ PAPERS-Guyana is yet to join the Budapest convention,  making it difficult to facilitate cross-border cooperation
unlike other member countries.

VII. CONCLUSION
So far in the fight against transnational crime, Guyana has made satisfactory efforts despite the challengeof the shortcomings mentioned. With more collaboration between countries through training, networking,sharing of best practices by experts and joint operations, law enforcement would be able to make significant
inroads into the dismantling of criminal organizations that perpetrate these crimes so that economic
development, human rights and challenges of combating it are not impacted. Also, it would enhance
professional development and understanding of the global impact of transnational crime in our region.

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