http://www.jonesbahamas.com/?c=45&a=11024

2nd January
Concerns Grow Over Haitian Drug Smuggling
By Rogan M. Smith
Haitians are using The Bahamas as a transit point to traffic narcotics into the United States because they know they can’t enter the northern nation on wooden sloops, according to U.S Ambassador to the Bahamas John Rood.

Mr. Rood said Haitians are loading their sloops with drugs, traveling to The Bahamas and then switching vessels in order to gain access into America.

Ambassador Rood’s comments came one week after Bahamian authorities seized drugs from aboard two Haitian sloops off Nassau.

Nearly 200 pounds of cocaine and marijuana were discovered during the drug bust, according to police.

Nine migrants were arrested.

"Haiti is a problem from a drug trafficking standpoint," Mr. Rood said.

"There are numerous planes being observed flying between Venezuela and Haiti. The drugs get into Haiti and we don’t have good intelligence of where they go. Haiti is very lawless and as you know there have been Haitian sloops that have been found with drugs on them coming into The Bahamas.

"Those sloops they could perhaps in some cases take the drugs to The Bahamas, but they don’t take them to the United States because we don’t allow wooden commercial vessels into the United States. So those drugs are then taken off the sloops and another means is used to transport those drugs to the United States."

Ambassador Rood also commended The Bahamas government for pushing for stability in Haiti and assisting the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country in that regard.

"That’s why we are so pleased the deputy prime minister, the foreign minister and prime minister have all taken great interest in doing what they can to support Haiti and create a climate where the rule of law prevails instead of the lawlessness that is evident in many parts of Haiti," he said.

The United States continues to partner with The Bahamas in joint operations to address the flow of illegal drugs and migrants.