WESTERN BUREAU — The Area One Narcotics Police were up to late yesterday evening interrogating five crew members of the SuperClubs-owned yacht, the MY Zein, on which over 1,000 pounds of hash oil was found Tuesday evening by SuperClubs employees who reported the find to the cops.

The police estimate that the contraband, a derivative of marijuana, has a street value of about $100 million, and say it is the biggest drug find in the parish since the start of the year.

The drug was found on the lower deck of the yacht, which was docked off the coast of the Grand Lido Negril resort.

According to a SuperClubs spokesperson, the police were called in after employees of the resort chain became suspicious during a routine check of the pleasure vessel in preparation for a voyage to Canada where it was to be dry docked.

“The boat was going to dry dock this weekend and we did our routine security checks on the boat before it was to depart,” a senior SuperClubs executive told the Observer yesterday. “We discovered the substance on the boat and we called the police.”

Constabulary Communication Network liaison officer for Westmoreland, Sergeant Alva Douglas, confirmed that the police were alerted about the drug by the SuperClubs employees.

The hash oil was packed in 11 plastic kegs, each weighing about 95 pounds and submerged in the boat’s water tank.

The SuperClubs spokesperson said that the five men who are being questioned have worked for the hotel chain for between five and 20 years. The spokesperson also added that while the drug find is cause for concern, the resort chain was not unduly concerned about negative publicity.

“I’m not worried about preserving our image. I think it is preserved by the fact that we ran a routine check, we discovered it and we called in the authorities and they are now doing their investigations,” the spokesperson said. “I don’t think that there is any blemish on our overall character or record and I don’t think anybody believes that we are involved because we would not have done our checks and called in the police.”

According to the SuperClubs executive, this has been the first such incident to occur on the vessel, which routinely goes to Canada in June and November for dry docking.

Last year, Westmoreland figured prominently in the news after several major drug busts in the Belmont and Whitehouse areas of the parish.

In October, the police seized from a house in Belmont, 43 bales of cocaine weighing 977.3 kilogrammes and eight kilogrammes of ganja which had an estimated street value of over $1.25 billion.

During that operation the police also seized:

* two, 200-horsepower Yamaha engines;

* two satellite phones;

* one cellular phone;

* a map of South America; and

* one 35-foot fibre glass boat.

Two weeks before that find, the police seized five packets of cocaine weighing 113 kilogrammes, three cellular phones, flashlights, portable radios and a Toyota Hiace minibus. The police said that seizure was made after the occupants of the minibus, who were signalled to stop by the cops, abandoned the vehicle.

Later in the year, there were a number of murders in the parish, and the police theorised that most were linked to the drug busts.