Guinea’s National Gendarmerie presented 1,180 kilograms of cannabis to the press after seizing it at Petit bateau in the commune of Kaloum in Conakry.[1] A gendarmerie patrol intercepted the pirogue Talmèssou-Coopérative as it tried to reach a Conakry landing whose name officers withheld.[1] Three people were aboard the pirogue when the patrol closed in.[1] Two of them immediately escaped by sea, while officers detained the captain with the packages.[1] Officers also questioned Rouguiatou Camara, who said she knew nothing about the drugs.[1] Camara said her uncle was among those detained and had called her to help him.[1] She said relatives in Sierra Leone had raised two million for her road trip to Guinea.[1] She said she met her uncle at Km36 just as officers came to arrest him, so she ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time.[1]
Officers said they acted on information received on Friday 3 March 2017 that a boat was carrying 47 sacks of cannabis.[1] The load weighed 1,180 kilograms and had come from Sierra Leone.[1] Operational units set a patrol at about 2 a.m. Universal Time to intercept the boat.[1] The maritime research commander said a floating unit was sent off Boussoura at about 2 a.m. and saw the boat coming from Kambia in Sierra Leone.[1] Officers first took the captain and the packages to the Fotoba surveillance post base, then moved the packages to the HCGN store.[1]
Communication officer Colonel Mamadou Alpha Barry presented the seizure to the press.[1] He said traffickers had turned to sea and river routes because road routes were fully covered by gendarmerie units.[1] The maritime commander said insecurity at sea had led them to plan patrols along the coast.[1]
