Latest update January 1st, 2025 1:00 AM
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Authories seize jewelry ,documents from “Big Heads” safe deposit box-property restrain, forfeiture proceedings begin against him, ‘Cash Jet’ pilot
The clampdown on money laundering is being pursued on a number of fronts. Not only are bank accounts being targeted but proceedings have started to seize properties linked to dirty money.
Extradited to the US: Shervington ‘ Big Head’ Lovell
On Friday, investigators of the police’s Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU), armed with orders, searched a safe deposit box at a city bank and found a quantity of jewelry and critical documents.
The safe deposit box was linked to Shervington Lovell called ‘Big Head’, who is being accused of drug trafficking by US authorities.
Lovell, part-owner of Tower Suites hotel on Main Street, was busted in Jamaica weeks ago in a sting operation, for alleged drug trafficking conspiracy.
He and two accused men, a Venezuelan and a Surinamese, were extradited to the US from Jamaica, on Friday morning, according to a source of the Custom Anti-Narcotic Unit (CANU) yesterday.
While Lovell is there, the process of going after properties here will not stop.
Convicted: Khamraj Lall
Contacted over the weekend, SOCU’s head, Assistant Police Commissioner, Sydney James, would only say that restraint and forfeiture proceedings have started in a number of cases, including against Lovell and convicted ‘cash-jet’ pilot, Captain Khamraj Lall.
Lall is linked to cash smuggling and conspiracy to traffic cocaine to the US.
In the case of Lovell, he is reportedly linked to a number of hotels, Tower Suites, and one in Berbice.
He is said to have other properties which SOCU is looking into.
Under anti-money laundering laws, authorities can seize properties that they believed were acquired from ill-gotten gains.
In fact, Lall’s two planes which he operated in Guyana, vehicles, cash at US banks and homes in New Jersey and Florida, are subject to forfeiture proceedings.
Lall was a prominent Guyana-born pilot who operated Kaylees Gas Station and a limousine service at Coverden, East Bank Demerara.
The gas station/property at Coverden, East Bank Demerara that is subject to forfeiture proceedings by local authorities.
That property is subject to forfeiture proceedings. A hangar that was built by Lall at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport was taken back by Government after there were breaches to the lease agreement.
Lall was arrested by Puerto Rican officials a few years ago for transporting more than half of a million US dollars in cash, on one of his planes he was flying. The money was stashed all over the plane.
Later, even while he was on trial for the cash smuggling, the US authorities arrested him again for cocaine trafficking conspiracy- he is set to be sentenced next January.
On the property at Kaylees, Coverden, a major heavy equipment business has started up by businessman Derrick Jaisingh. It is unclear how the businesses are linked.
With regards to Lovell, US court documents named him and five other persons are accused jointly and singly of cocaine trafficking conspiracy in a place outside the US (Jamaica).
US prosecutors also filed firearm and maritime violations charges.
Significantly, the US is also going after assets which they believe were linked to the conspiracy.
This includes a Gulfstream plane, cash, vehicles and properties.
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