The Tribune

ACTING Commissioner of Police Clayton Fernander said police are targeting gun traffickers to stem the rise of violence in the country and have also had success against web shop armed robbers.

“We’ve had success with some matters with respect to web shops,” Mr Fernander said, adding that five web shops in the eastern area of New Providence were robbed just last week.

“They were robbed and good work by detectives, a team, they were able to arrest an individual,” he said. “We eventually arrested three others. These matters are closed. We also recovered two handguns that were used in the commission of those offences. They are in custody and they will appear before the courts sometime (Monday).

“We also had some success and we continue to see that the commission of a number of crimes in our communities is by the use of firearms. (There has been) excellent work by the officers in Bimini. In South Bimini they were able to arrest four individuals, three Bahamians and a US citizen with respect to nine pistols (Sunday evening) and they were en route to Nassau; nine pistols, assorted magazines and ammunition.

“You could imagine if they had gotten into the hands of the criminals and, I believe it was their intention to do just that, and we were able to disrupt that, so excellent work again by officers in South Bimini, they were able to arrest those individuals. They are on the way to Nassau to be dealt with by the detectives here and we will follow a number of lines of inquiries with respect to that.”

Mr Fernander was referring to the arrest of one American man and five Bahamian men at the South Bimini International Airport after a quantity of firearms and ammunition disguised in drink boxes were discovered on Sunday.

The discovery was made shortly after 4pm during a security screening of passengers at the airport in South Bimini, police reported.

Police said that six men had presented themselves, along with a number of bins, for screening. It was found that the bins contained a quantity of illegal firearms and ammunition.

There were nine .9mm pistols, one silencer, one Glock magazine, three .9mm magazines, one M-4 magazine, seven black magazines, fifty .40 hollow tip rounds, seventeen .40 rounds, two extended .9mm magazines and (157) .9mm ammunition.

Police said the firearms and ammunition were disguised in various drink boxes.

Officers of the Bimini Division were called to the airport, where they arrested the men. They also took the illegal firearms and ammunition into their custody.

“We continue to track the traffickers,” Mr Fernander also said yesterday. “We don’t manufacture weapons in The Bahamas. We don’t. They are coming in through the US and our position is to go after the traffickers and we continue to work closely with our US counterparts and we are doing just that and we are getting a number of results.”

Police Commissioner Paul Rolle is out of the country on police business, Mr Fernander said yesterday.