Latest update December 11th, 2024 1:33 AM
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Convicted drug trafficker Peter Morgan back in Guyana
Guyanese auto sales businessman and race car driver, Peter Morgan, is back on local soil after completing a 10 year sentence in the United States of America for drug trafficking.
Peter Morgan
Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum confirmed yesterday that Morgan was handed over to local law enforcement officers by US officials after he was deported following the completion of his sentence.
Morgan underwent the normal procession of deportees by detectives at the Criminal Investigations Department Headquarters before he was released.
In 2010, Morgan was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment after he pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges. The sentence was deferred on several occasions, which suggested that there was a plea deal.
But since Morgan was held since 2007, a US Judge had ruled that the time served be taken into consideration with regard to the period he would spend behind bars.
The businessman was facing a three-count indictment which accused him of conspiring to import, possess and distribute five kilograms of cocaine between December 2001 and August 2003.
Morgan was nabbed in March 2007 in Trinidad by Trinidadian and US authorities while he was in-transit at Piarco International Airport. He was extradited to the US on August 23, 2007, after he withdrew a last-ditch appeal he had made in the Port-of-Spain Appellate Court.
His capture in Port of Spain was reminiscent of that of another Guyanese businessman, Shaheed ‘ Roger’ Khan who is currently serving time in US prison on similar charges. Khan was also arrested in Trinidad after being deported from Suriname.
Morgan was charged in December 1999 following an arms bust at the John Fernandes Wharf in Georgetown. Members of the Guyana Police Force and the Customs and Excise Department unearthed 14 guns, including semi-automatic weapons, pump-action rifles and revolvers in a container consigned to the businessman. Also, ranks recovered over 3000 rounds of ammunition in the container, which had been shipped from Miami, Florida by Nankumar Budhan, to Morgan. Local law enforcement agents had requested assistance from Interpol in relation with the investigation.
On December 21, Morgan and Budhan appeared in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court to answer charges in relation to the guns and ammunition find.
On January 20, 2000, Budhan, who had shipped the container in which the guns and ammunition were found pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to one year in prison on all five of the charges. He however spent only one year since the sentences ran concurrently. The charges against Morgan were dropped on the advice of the DPP.
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