Guyanese man busted with cocaine in duty free cream liqueur at JFK

Guyanese man busted with cocaine in duty free cream liqueur at JFK

Drug pushers are continuing their efforts to get cocaine into the United States from Guyana and they may now be targeting the duty-free stores at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport.

Another passenger from Guyana has been busted at New York’s JFK Airport. The man who has been identified as Raphael Armstrong was nabbed with 6.3 pounds of cocaine when he arrived in New York on Caribbean Airlines BW526 from Georgetown, Guyana.

The cocaine was found concealed in bottles of cream liqueur which were in duty-free bags.

According to the complaint filed by US Customs and Border Protection, Armstrong was pulled aside for a customs inspection and he presented a black suitcase along with a yellow duty-free shopping bag.

The agents said the black suitcase was searched without any incident and the defendant remained calm. However, as the agents moved to inspect the duty-free bag, the young man was noticed focusing heavily on the bag.

In the bag, the customs agents found two 26 ounce bottles which “purported to contain rum cream liqueur”. While inspecting the bottles, the agents noticed that one of them was not sealed and had a strong odor coming out of it.

Armstrong was taken to a private room for a secondary search and the substance inside of the two bottles were tested and found to be positive as cocaine.

The man was immediately arrested and charged for drug trafficking. He has been remanded to prison. Bail was objected to since he has no ties to the United States and most of his family resides in Guyana.

News Source understands that the young man’s relatives in Guyana became very worried after they could not reach him over the weekend. They were aware that he was traveling to the United States but became worried after other relatives in the US could not locate him and relatives in Guyana found it difficult to reach him also.

This is the second time in less than a month that a Guyanese national has been busted with cocaine in the US in duty-free bags. Earlier in November, another man was held after he arrived in the US with close to 20 pounds of cocaine which was found in rum bottles that were in a duty-free bag. He has been charged with drug trafficking also.

Since his arrest, three Guyanese woman were busted with cocaine at the same JFK airports  days  apart. Cocaine was found in hardcover books, plastic bags and flour packets and milk tins that were being carried by the three women.

In Guyana, the drug enforcement agencies have launched an investigation at the Cheddi Jagan Airport in an effort to weed out any possible  coercion with members of the drug underworld.

 

Filed: 9th December, 2014

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