A 60-foot Brazilian vessel with gold mining equipment was intercepted by the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Coast Guard last Friday five nautical miles off Bush Lot in the Corentyne River.
According to a GDF press release yesterday, documents found revealed that the vessel had been registered in Brazil and that it had left that country on May 10 en route to Suriname which borders the Corentyne. Further, the manifest found on board did not account for all the equipment uncovered in the hold of the vessel. The hold contained some gold mining equipment including pumps and hoses.
The GDF Coast Guard ranks arrested the vessel's captain, Emanuel de Jesus Fransa Bia and his crew comprising five men and a woman, at approximately 1 p.m. The vessel and crew were then handed over to senior authorities of the Customs arm of the Guyana Revenue Authority shortly after arrival in Port Georgetown on Saturday.
The release said that on apprehension, Bia related that the "Novo Brazilian 111" had encountered minor problems and as such had been delayed in reaching its destination on time.
The arrest of the Brazilian cargo vessel was a result of a synchronised operation between the Coast Guard and the Air Corps, the release quoted Commanding Officer Coast Guard, Godfrey George as saying. It further quoted the Commander as informing that the operation entailed aerial reconnaissance of Guyana's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) by the Air Corps some 48 hours prior to surface patrols conducted by the GDFS Essequibo - bought recently from the UK - and the four motor life boats (MLBs), also procured recently from the US.
It stated that the interception was carried out with the use of the Essequibo and the Pirai - one of the four MLBs, and noted that since the acquisition of these vessels the GDF Coast Guard has increased activities in Guyana's territorial waters.
Relative to the reports of piracy some two weeks ago in which several fishermen were attacked in waters off Berbice, army sources say the Y-12 had sighted six Venezuelan vessels but these had not been intercepted because there had been no evidence of a fishing net or other fishing equipment from the said vessels in the Guyana waters. The GDFS will seek to extend their patrols, according to Staff Sergeant, Stanford Conway.
The interception of the Brazilian vessel came just days after Commander-in-Chief, President Bharrat Jagdeo admonished the army to make better use of its naval assets in patrolling Guyana's waters. The interception is also seen as strategically significant as Guyana and Suriname have a long-standing dispute over the Corentyne and the GDF has not patrolled regularly in that area. In June 2000, the Suriname navy evicted an oil rig from Guyana's Atlantic waters and the boosting of the marine wing of the GDF has been partially attributed to this event.