Dealers' offshore smuggling scams

Customs officials believe criminals are using global positioning satellite (GPS) technology to direct vessels to shipments tossed from the sides of passing yachts.

The method is one of the biggest loopholes in Bermuda’s border protection efforts.

William Pearman, assistant collector of Customs, said: “Bermuda is surrounded by water.

“A fishing vessel can go to Challenger Banks unchallenged and return unchallenged.

“We need to look beyond the immediate entry points.

“It doesn’t take much to import a shipment of drugs — you don’t have to go through the controls because you can bypass them.”

Speaking before the Parliamentary Joint Select Committee on Violence and Gun Crime yesterday, Mr. Pearman said there is very little customs officers could currently do to detect and intercept such transactions at sea.

He added: “Harbour Radio can tell us if a fishing vessel has gone near a cruise ship. They can notify us and we can check.

“The problem is, if it (the drug shipment) is dropped off the side with a GPS on it and they pick it up, we can’t do anything.”

Customs officials hope plans for a new joint border control force pooling the resources of police, Customs, Immigration and Environmental Protection, will help deal with the issue.

Winniefred Fostine-DeSilva, collector of Customs, told the committee: “A single border agency will go along way to addressing that problem.

“That is in the works. It is vital that customs and police work even more closely together. They almost need to be one for border control purposes.”

Senator Colonel David Burch has been tasked with creating a “stronger interdictive force against the scourge of drugs and guns in the community” in his new role as National Security Minister.

It is understood that a combined marine unit, potentially involving Regiment soldiers, could soon be patrolling Bermuda’s waters.

Ms Fostine-DeSilva said law enforcement is fighting criminals who are better financed than they are.

Seizures

She added: “GPS is helping the criminals as well — and they have more financial resources than we do.

“If we had their financial resources we might have a better chance of making the seizures we would like.”

She told the committee, chaired by PLP MP Randy Horton, that most of the guns and drugs coming into Bermuda were from the U.S.

She said: “Our source country is not Jamaica or any of the islands to our south, it is the eastern seaboard of the U.S.

“It is the source country for firearms, ammunition and drugs. There are no real controls on the purchase of weapons and ammunition. You can go and purchase a firearm at a store in the U.S. and the only record will be that first sale.

“If you go to a gun show there is no record at all.

“They can buy a gun and ammunition and there is no record of it and we don’t find out about it until it is used in a crime.”

Asked about the much-quoted statistic that customs detects about 10 per cent of the contraband coming into the country, Mr. Pearman said the figure was a very rough “guess-timate”.

He added: “If you say it is 10 per cent then Bermuda has a $100million per year drug habit. Can a 65,000 population sustain that?”

He suggested that some of the recent violence on the streets could be about rival dealers fighting for space in a congested market place.

Yesterday’s hearing was the second public meeting of the Joint Select Committee on Violent Crime and Gun Violence in Bermuda.

There will be further meetings on December 2, 9 and 16.