These 11 guns and hundreds of cartridges were seized by the police yesterday afternoon at a Newport West warehouse, Kingston. - Junior Dowie/Staff Photographer THE POLICE yesterday seized from a Newport West warehouse in Kingston, 11 illegal guns and hundreds of assorted cartridges, which were packed in a 20-gallon air compressor cylinder.
Detectives detained four persons for questioning about the find, but up to late last night they had not been charged, the police said.
Yesterday's cache has pushed the number of illegal arms seized by the police since January to 218 guns and 4,605 rounds of ammunition.
Reports are that about 1:30 p.m., members of the Customs Contraband Enforcement Team (CET), along with detectives from the CIB Headquarters, downtown Kingston, and the St. Andrew South CIB, searched NO. 116 Warehouse in Newport West.
SHIPPED FROM MIAMI
A red cylinder for an air compressor was found to have the guns and ammunition. It was shipped from Miami.
The cylinder had apparently been cut, the guns and ammunition, wrapped in plastic, paper and pieces of cloth, were packed in it and the cylinder welded shut.
The weapons were an AK-47 assault rifle, a shotgun, four pistols (including a Glock, and two small guns which could easily be concealed in a shirt pocket), four revolvers (including two Magnums), a mini Uzi submachine gun, six magazines for the rifle and four magazines for the pistols. Two brand new holsters were also seized.
The smuggling of illegal guns into Jamaica, and across the region, was one of the issues raised by Police Commissioner Francis Forbes, at the annual conference of the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police which ended yesterday in Bermuda.
Commissioner Forbes said the heads of CARICOM had mandated a scientific review of the flow of illegal guns and ammunition and the movement of dangerous deportees throughout the region.
