Jamaica's Customs Department is paying special attention to close to a dozen business operators as it tightens efforts to eradicate corruption.

According to reports reaching The Gleaner, the names of several business persons keep recurring each time there are serious breaches.

Commissioner of Customs Danville Walker has confirmed that he has a list with 10 persons whose imports are carefully scrutinised. "These are educated persons, not from the inner-city, some worked in the customs department in the past. They operate legitimate businesses," Walker pointed out.

Police sources have noted that because the Customs Department has tightened its operations, gangs are no longer importing illegal guns and ammunition concealed in barrels, electrical appliances and furniture, and have turned to the Jamaica/Haiti 'drugs for guns trade' to renew their supplies.

Head of the Trans-National and Narcotics Division, Senior Superintendent Carlton Wilson, has expressed concern about the growing drugs for guns trade between Haiti and Jamaica.

Reports are that a group of Jamaicans who have settled in Haiti are among the main perpetrators responsible for exporting the illegal guns to Jamaica, and a small team of security personnel has been dispatched to Haiti to assist with that leg of the investigation.

Over the past two weeks there have been four major ganja seizures in St Thomas, Trelawny, St Elizabeth and sections of the Corporate Area, which the police believe were part of the gun smuggling trade.

Hampered by helicopter crash

Last year, the police seized 35,507 kilograms of ganja, compared with 6,891 kilograms seized so far this year. The police say their ability to effectively fight ganja eradication has been hampered following the crash of a helicopter at the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) headquarters, Up Park Camp, Kingston, two weeks ago.

In the meantime, the police are calling on the Government to provide farmers, especially those living in the traditional wet lands, with assistance to deter them from ganja cultivation. "We have observed that a lot of these farmers are pulling their children into the ganja farming. Some have stopped their children from school to assist them. Now that it is summer, there is now a significant number of children involved in the ganja production," according to SSP Wilson.