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Another massive MoBay gun find

Army to man ports in Second City

Published:Saturday | February 4, 2023 | 1:52 AMJanet Silvera/Senior Gleaner Writer

Members of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) are expected to be dispatched to the Montego Bay Wharf as of Monday, owing to the huge numbers of guns and ammunition which have been passing through the port in recent times, The Gleaner has learnt....

Members of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) are expected to be dispatched to the Montego Bay Wharf as of Monday, owing to the huge numbers of guns and ammunition which have been passing through the port in recent times, The Gleaner has learnt.

Soldiers were stationed at the facility before, but were moved for reasons unknown to this newspaper. Their return comes on the heels of some 60 firearms, including rifles, found yesterday in crates at the Port Handlers warehouse. This is the second major ammunition find in a week.

Sources at the wharf told The Gleaner that the consignee was the same as last Friday. Twenty-two guns were confiscated in that find at the Seaboard warehouse on another section of the Free Zone area.

This new shipment was from Florida.

“How is it that it is so easy to ship guns to Jamaica, where are the systems in place to prevent this from happening,” said a port handler who asked not to be named.

She said the process to send goods out of Jamaica was so difficult and care is taken to ensure that illicit items do not end up in the United States, but it appears that little is done to prevent weapons from entering the island.

Efforts to get a comment from National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang last evening proved futile. The only thing the minister reportedly said through his communications officer was: “It is an active investigation, so I would prefer not to comment.”

In the wake of the January 27 gun find, Chang said at the time that he hoped the seizure of the 22 guns and large cache of ammunition at the wharf in Freeport would discourage others from trying to send guns to Jamaica through the ports.

“This kind of find, we are very happy to hear and we look forward to more, but not so much more. So those who are trying to bring them in stop the activity because whatever they do, we’ll find a way. The criminal mind is smart, but our police and security forces...are going to intercept and disrupt this type of activity,” he said last week.