Roger Khan threatened life of US Ambassador in 2004 forcing abandonment of counter narcotics operations

In cables released by WikiLeaks between the US Embassy in Georgetown and Washington in 2006, US Ambassador Roland Bullen informed that a move to set up the anti drugs operation had to be cancelled when Khan started to threaten the lives of the Ambassador and the US Security Officer who was based at the embassy at the time.

Roger Khan threatened life of US Ambassador in 2004 forcing abandonment of counter narcotics  operations

Two years before he was arrested and eventually taken to the United States to face drug trafficking charges, Shaheed Roger Khan had successfully forced the abandonment of a counter narcotics operation that was being set up in Guyana in 2004 by the US Drug Enforcement Agency.

In cables released by WikiLeaks between the US Embassy in Georgetown and Washington in 2006, US Ambassador Roland Bullen informed that a move to set up the anti drugs operation had to be cancelled when Khan started to threaten the lives of the Ambassador and the US Security Officer who were based at the embassy at the time.

In a February 1, 2006 cable, the US Ambassador at the time wrote that the “DEA developed a plan in 2004 to establish a counternarcotics operation in Guyana. An informant leaked details about the plan. After the leak, Khan threatened to blow up the site of the operation and threatened the lives of Ambassador and the then RSO.  These threats forced the operation’s abandonment.”

Bullen also informed Washington that Roger Khan surrounded himself with a “coterie of former police tactical squad members for security”.

The cables said that Khan reportedly paid his low-level security personnel USD 1,600 per month, which was at least eight times what they previously earned with the police force.

The Ambassador reported that Khan was active in smuggling arms into Guyana from Suriname, French Guiana, and possibly France.

The cables revealed that the Embassy believed that Khan exchanged “cocaine for the arms. Khan has also established connections with FARC and has acted as a middleman in cocaine for arms transactions. In such instances, Khan has smuggled guns into Guyana and then exchanged them with the FARC for cocaine. There are strong indications that Khan was deeply involved in a December 2005 shipment of weapons to FARC in Columbia.”

The Farc is the oldest and largest group among Colombia’s left-wing rebels and is one of the world’s richest guerrilla armies.

At the time, the US Embassy also saw Roger Khan as rising quickly to the top of the drug trafficking operations in Guyana and remained in the spotlight despite the warnings of his Colombian connections.

He was arrested in neighbouring Suriname and taken to the US from Trinidad after he was expelled from Suriname and was being transferred to Guyana.

In 2009, Khan pleaded guilty to a number of drug trafficking charges in the United States and was sentenced to several years in prison. He remains in jail.

 

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