Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo has warned that there are criminal networks being formed in Guyana that have the potential to infiltrate the country’s Security Forces and the Judiciary. However, he said the Government will be working swiftly to address the issue.

He also claimed that there are sections of the local media being recruited as part of the plans, while offering no details or the alleged links.

The Vice President told a press conference this afternoon that recent events in the country highlights a worrying trend that could see a Pablo Escobar phenomenon happening in Guyana. Pablo Escobar was a notorious Colombian drug lord and politician.

“We have to be careful that we don’t replicate that culture here, we have to cut it out early because in that sort of society, it is only violence, look of the consequences for Colombia for decades upon decades,” Mr. Jagdeo told reporters.

Mr. Jagdeo said the society cannot become one where persons with money feel that they can control the Security Forces, the Judiciary and other State institutions. He said Government is now zooming in on the issue clearly.

“So, this is something that we have to guard against and all of those people and ten years from now is when you will see the consequences of subversion, when people who believe through gold smuggling or drug dealing or other criminal activity, they amass wealth and they control all of these agencies then the society disappears and that is what they would like,” Jagdeo said.

From the Government side, Mr. Jagdeo does not rule out launching investigations into State agencies which he believes have the potential to be compromised by criminal networks.

In fact, he thinks that agencies such as the Gold Board, the Guyana Revenue Authority and the Police Force should be subjected to such investigations.

“Clearly you have to have an anti- corruption framework, that’s  why I said, that we need to investigations’ done in gold, board, GRA and within the police Force to see who may be receiving money from this criminal enterprise that’s the Mohameds and others and compromising their work, we need to do that and it must be institutionalized,” Mr. Jagdeo said.

Jagdeo said that individual agencies that are subject to compromise should launch a full-scale investigation into the linkages and people must be made to face consequences.

He said the Judiciary must also be looked at although it might be a bit more difficult to investigate the judiciary.

Mr. Jagdeo served as President of Guyana from 1999 to 2011. It was under his Presidency that a number of state agencies were found to be compromised by suspected drug lords, with one of his Cabinet Ministers even being named in US Court documents as having given approval for the importation of spy equipment for a drug lord, while another one of his Cabinet Ministers was forced to resign in wake of allegations linking him to the formation of a Phantom Death Squad that hunted down and killed suspected criminals and was also believed to be responsible for other deaths and criminal activities.

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