Businessman who imports fish from Guyana convicted after being caught with $8M cocaine shipment
(New York Daily News) The jury didn’t buy this guy’s fish story.
The owner of a company that imports fish from Guyana was convicted Friday in Brooklyn Federal Court of smuggling 250 kilos of cocaine in a frozen shrimp-laden shipping container.
Heeralall Sukdeo claimed he was duped by a relative who is in the fish business, too, and was left holding the bag after the feds found the bricks hidden inside blocks of ice.
“The defendant is a drug smuggler,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Harris told the jury, “and he was caught red-handed.”
The cocaine, valued at over $8 million, was shipped from Georgetown, Guyana, and arrived at the Red Hook pier in June 2015.
The agents were unable to repack the frozen shrimp in the 20-foot container and substituted a 40-foot container which they placed under surveillance.
The much larger shipping container apparently did not arouse Sukdeo’s suspicion when he flew in from Guyana to pick up the load.
Sukdeo’s $500,000 bail was revoked after the verdict.
