Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the dis­ap­pear­ance of two kilo­grammes of mar­i­jua­na from the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion, months af­ter an of­fi­cer was charged in a sim­i­lar theft at the Barataria Po­lice Sta­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, the mar­i­jua­na was lodged at the Ch­agua­nas sta­tion for safe­keep­ing on Tues­day af­ter it was found ear­li­er that day. The drugs were part of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by of­fi­cers out­side the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, who re­turned yes­ter­day to re­trieve the ex­hibits.

Sources said the drugs were pho­tographed at the scene, with of­fi­cers con­firm­ing the pres­ence of a plant-like sub­stance re­sem­bling mar­i­jua­na. How­ev­er, when in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­turned to col­lect the ex­hibits, they dis­cov­ered the pack­ets had been re­placed with pieces of wood.

Po­lice sources said in­ves­ti­ga­tors sus­pect the drugs may have been re­moved by some­one with­in the sta­tion. As a re­sult, all of­fi­cers on du­ty at the time were or­dered to re­main at the sta­tion while they were ques­tioned. Of­fi­cers of the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau were al­so called in to as­sist with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The in­ci­dent fol­lows a sim­i­lar case last Oc­to­ber, when a con­sta­ble at­tached to the Barataria Po­lice Sta­tion was charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice over the theft of mar­i­jua­na val­ued at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1 mil­lion from the sta­tion’s strong room.

In that case, the drugs were seized on Sep­tem­ber 6 dur­ing an in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tion at the Trinci­ty In­dus­tri­al Es­tate. Of­fi­cers re­cov­ered 82 black pack­ets, four brown pack­ets, two trans­par­ent pack­ets and one red pack­et con­tain­ing cannabis. Three men, aged be­tween 26 and 42, from Trinci­ty and Ch­agua­nas, were ar­rest­ed for pos­ses­sion of cannabis for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing.

The drugs were lat­er stored at the Barataria Po­lice Sta­tion. On Sep­tem­ber 15, of­fi­cers con­duct­ing a rou­tine check dis­cov­ered they were miss­ing.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 kilo­grammes of mar­i­jua­na had been re­moved and re­placed with neat­ly pack­aged bricks and sty­ro­foam. The con­sta­ble was sub­se­quent­ly ar­rest­ed and charged fol­low­ing a month-long probe.

—JENSEN LA VENDE