Latest update December 22nd, 2024 1:56 AM
Lusignan shrimp exporter indicted by US on coke charges
A 268-kilo coke bust in June in Brooklyn, NY.shipping container full of shrimp.
A Lusignan businessman arrested earlier this year in Brooklyn after a sting operation by US drug enforcement officials, has been indicted in a New York court.
The case of the defendant, Heeralall Sukdeo, came up again before US District Court, Eastern District of New York on Tuesday with a grand jury returning two charges.
Count one said that Sukdeo, between April 29, 2015 and June 23, 2015, in the Eastern District of New York and elsewhere, conspired with others to import cocaine into the United States from a place outside the US.
The Guyanese seafood exporter is also being accused of shipping more than five kilos of coke into the US on or about June 10.
Sukdeo was nabbed by US authorities in June following a 268-kilo cocaine shipment from Guyana to Brooklyn.
Initially, the man had signaled his intentions to strike a plea deal. Both the prosecutors and Sukdeo’s defense team had wanted up to August 9 to continue negotiations which could result in the case not having to go to trial.
In June, US Federal agents discovered a new delicacy from Guyana — shrimp ‘coketail’.
A drug-sniffing dog noticed something fishy about a shipping container that arrived at the Red Hook Terminal, Brooklyn, from Guyana, and found 268 kilos of cocaine stuffed inside frozen shrimp, according to a complaint unsealed in the Brooklyn Federal Court.
The whale of a catch had an estimated street value of more than US$12 million.
The agents secretly removed the coke-filled crustaceans and trailed the container after it cleared customs on June 15, according to U.S. Homeland Security special agent Ryan Varrone.
The container was delivered to an unidentified warehouse in Brooklyn where agents spotted Sukdeo “together with others … organizing and supervising the unloading” of the shipment, the complaint states.
Sukdeo, 59, the owner of Sukdeo and Sons Fishing, a shipping company based in Queens, was arrested, but said he was innocent of any wrongdoing.
“Sukdeo stated that he was present only in the vicinity of the truck containing the target shipment because he was curious about its contents,” Varrone stated in the complaint.
The shipment had originated in Guyana and was addressed to “Randolph Fraser” which is apparently Sukdeo’s alias, an employee told the feds.
Sukdeo was ordered held without bail.
Defence lawyer, Andre Travieso, said Sukdeo has never been arrested before.
“I’m pretty confident that when all the facts come out, this was just a huge mistake,” Travieso told the Daily News, insisting that his client did not order the drug-crusted shrimp.
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