CUSTOMS Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) agents are on the trail of another set of drug lords including big names in the local business sector, a top source said yesterday.

“It’s like a Pandora’s Box and some of these people are in vehicle dealerships and pharmaceuticals”, the source told the Guyana Chronicle.

“This is a totally new investigation and we are on the trail of another set of drug lords”, the official said.

CANU plans raids and has asked the Army for back-up because of what ranks of the unit and police may be up against with the new turn in the intensified cocaine networks probe, he said.

“We have photos of the houses, other buildings and the vehicles some of these people have and the Guyana Revenue Authority can look into how they acquired such huge wealth”, the source offered.

The fresh investigation launched by CANU is based on names provided by Indarpaul Moninlall Doodnauth, also known as Teddy, who has been grilled on his involvement in shipping cocaine to Canada, the source said.

Doodnauth, 48, a businessman of Lusignan West, East Coast Demerara, and brother of the man charged in Canada after the recent big cocaine bust there, turned himself in to officials last week.

Police had issued wanted bulletins for Doodnauth and Amalek Orlando Watson, 31, a self-employed man of Annandale West, East Coast Demerara.

Doodnauth and Watson were allegedly middle men in the shipment of two consignments of cocaine concealed among pepper sauce bottles from Guyana. They allegedly packed the cocaine into the boxes with the bottles of pepper sauce, the source said.

CANU has also confirmed that the shipment of 373 pounds of cocaine intercepted in nibbi furniture in Miami last week by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was sent by a well-known businessman on the West Demerara, the source said.

A central suspect in the Miami case, Nymrod Singh, 37, of 123 New Road, Vreed-en-Hoop, West Coast Demerara, was held Saturday by police in Bartica and has been grilled by CANU and police officers.

The shipment of the cocaine in the furniture consignment was arranged by a customs broker through a ghost firm, a source said.

Others questioned include Robin Barakat, a Canadian citizen named as a suspect and who turned himself in to CANU Monday. A source said the 37-year-old gave his name as Salim Paul.

Barakat’s business partner Keith King, a deportee, also turned himself in to CANU, the source said.

An official said police have questioned Barakat about a shipment of cocaine that was intercepted last year in Jamaica.

Police and CANU agents are also looking for Reginald Rodrigues, 55, who owns Rodrigues Tropical Export based at 141 Victoria Street, Albouystown, Georgetown.

He was deported from the U.S. in 2001 after a three-year sentence in jail for conspiracy to import cocaine, the source said.

A cocaine shipment seized by the DEA in the U.S. Virgin Islands last week was worth CAN$14.5M.

Media reports in Canada said the consignment was destined for Caribbean International Food Distributors, the same company run by the Guyanese man charged by Canadian police in the major CAN$40M drug shipment.

Mahendrapaul Doodnauth, 45, of Seguin Court in Toronto, is charged with importing cocaine, conspiracy to import cocaine and possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking.

The second container was searched in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, on Dec. 24 by DEA agents acting on information received from Canadian investigators, the Toronto Star reported.

Inside the ship, police found 100 kilograms of cocaine hidden inside cardboard dividers in about 140 boxes of food seasoning destined for the Etobicoke-based distribution company run by Doodnauth.

Along with the previous shipment, the amount of cocaine seized totals 376 kilograms, with an estimated street value of CAN$54.5M.

President Bharrat Jagdeo on Wednesday welcomed the collaboration that led to the recent seizure overseas of more than 500 kilos of cocaine shipped from Guyana but said the U.S., Canada and other developed countries have to do more to aid the fight here against drugs traffickers.

“I am very pleased with the success that we have had in collaboration with the international community (but) I still feel we need more support for our drugs fighting efforts”, he said at a press conference at his office in Georgetown.

He said local agencies need more equipment, training and a whole range of assistance from the developed world in the drugs fight, noting that the collaboration has worked well.

A local official bemoaned the delay in requests for information from American and Canadian agencies in the recent big busts in Canada and the U.S. He said investigators here had to release a suspect because they had not received information requested on the man from the Canadian and American agencies.