Drug Enforcement

By Chester Robards

On November 10, 2006 several Nassau Flight Service baggage handlers, from the Bahamas, were sent to the Ft. Lauderdale airport for what was to be a routine training exercise with the Transportation Safety Administration.
Lester Bain, 29, Delvino Rigby, 26 and Marcus Rolle, 22, never returned home.
After deplaning Spirit Airlines flight 174 the men were arrested by immigration and customs enforcement officials for attempting to import 2.48 lbs of cocaine hidden within a fourth man's, Giovanni Munroe's, luggage.
In September of 2006, a flight landed in Miami carrying a man whose name appears on President Bush’s Drug Kingpin list.
However, he was not a leisure traveler.
Samuel Knowles, known infamously as ‘Ninety’ in the Bahamas, arrived to the shores of South Florida in hand and leg shackles. His accommodations would eventually be the Ft. Lauderdale Jail, with daily trips to the Federal courthouse for a Trial by Jury.
He is suspected of overseeing the transportation of over $1billion worth of Cocaine into the US.
These arrests were the direct result of initiatives between law enforcement in the Bahamas and the USA.
For years Drug Enforcement Units under the Royal Bahamas Police force have been working with the DEA and FBI in a drug interdiction coalition whose forces stretch even beyond the shores of The Bahamas and USA.
“We’ve taken down some serious drug rings that were operating in Jamaica, Haiti, Canada, The Bahamas and the US,” said Chief Superintendent of Police, Raymond Gibson.
The Drug enforcement Agencies of the Bahamas and US have a working relationship which allows them to share information between each other and which allows US law enforcement to conduct investigations in the Bahamas.
“On May 9, 2006 NFS Baggage Handler Roney Tony met with an individual at the Nassau Beach Hotel and agreed to import 1 kilogram of cocaine into the United States using a courier he identified as Ladaria Higgs,” according to court documents provided by the DEA.
An affidavit signed by Special Agent, Jorge Gomez of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, revealed that Trujillo Darville, while disembarking a Spirit Airlines Flight from Nassau, Bahamas was discovered to have traces of narcotics on his person by Canine "Dottie." Subsequently, he was found to be carrying 4.82 pounds of cocaine in his luggage, and admitted to Law enforcement officers that he was to receive $1,500 for transporting the narcotics to an unknown man in Ft Lauderdale.
Tony was tried in March on four counts of known importation of a substance containing a detectable amount of cocaine between January 22 and January 27 of 2006, along with co-defendant Darville, who was convicted of cocaine importation in June of 2006.
Tony and Munroe along with Bain, Rigby and Munroe made up the group of five Baggage handlers from the Bahamas arrested in Ft Lauderdale in November 2006.
Information released by the US Embassy in the Bahamas shortly after the group's arrest suggested that they had been under surveillance for over a year.
Knowles remained seated throughout his proceedings in October 2006, even when the court was directed to rise as Magistrate Edwin Torres left the room.
The Judge ruled during his first pretrial detention hearing that he be required to pay a $10 million court maturity bond in case 0425, which would be honored once the money was found to have come from legitimate sources.
However, even if the bond money was to be raised, the still disputed case 1091 would not allow for Knowles’ release under any circumstances.
Knowles is said to have been the General of a drug smuggling ring that was shipping cocaine from Colombia to Jamaica, Jamaica to The Bahamas and then to the US.
Knowles trial by Jury began in mid November in this year.
“They carried out his orders with military precision,” said Federal Prosecutor George Karavetsos, during Knowles’ trial. “He had a well structured organization that he put together.”
The most damning evidence in the trial came from wiretapped phone calls provided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
“You too light for this operation,” Knowles can be heard saying to one of his men in the recordings.
“I had to give them my 200,000,” he says in another of the prosecution’s audio evidence.
The prosecution, to buttress its case, developed a timeline between 1995 and 1996 in which cooperating witnesses claimed they worked with Knowles transporting Colombian cocaine, through Jamaica and the Bahamas to the US.
According to cooperating witness testimony, Knowles oversaw a small brigade of men who forged a route for cocaine, incorporating go-fast boats, some with 3-250 horsepower engines and low flying aircraft. Prosecutors contended that Knowles had ties to the Cali Cartel in Colombia, through his liaison, Gary McDonald.
Karavetsos painted a portrait of Knowles for the jury of a man who recruited, trained and deployed his men, teaching them nautical routes to and from Jamaica and the best ways to evade law enforcement.
The Jury eventually declared a mistrial in Knowles case.
According to Mr Gibson 2006 and 2007 were good years for the USA, Bahamas Drug interdiction coalition and the fight against illegal drugs.
“We have and excellent relationship with the US,” said Mr. Gibson.






Audio Report: