After months of changing her plea in a cocaine trafficking charge, former media worker Zanneel Williams was Monday sentenced to four years imprisonment and fined $14.4 million.
Williams appeared before Magistrate Scarce at the Diamond Magistrates’ Court.
During her last appearance on February 10, 2023 she changed her plea to guilty and was further remanded to prison.
In April 2022, Williams, 26, of Lamaha Gardens, Georgetown, made her first court appearance before Magistrate Sunil Scarce at the Diamond/Grove Magistrates’ Court.
She was jointly charged with Anil Sookhoo, 33, an ex-officer of the Customs Anti-Narcotic Unit (CANU) of Kuru Kuru, Soesdyke/Linden Highway;and Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) officer Shameka Caesar, 27, of Durban Street, Wortmanville, Georgetown.
During her first appearance, she pleaded guilty to the charge; the next month during her second court appearance, Williams change her plea to not guilty.
On Febraury 10, the trial was scheduled to commence in the case, but Williams opted to plead guilty, again.
She confessed to trafficking 9.628 kilogrammes of cocaine at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) on April 22, 2022.
According to reports, Williams was nabbed at the airport with 7.9kg of cocaine concealed in the walls of her laptop bag.
At the time, she was an outgoing passenger on a Jetblue flight B6 2166, which was destined for the United States. She was arrested and taken to CANU Headquarters, where 1.6 kg of cocaine was found strapped to her body.
Based on a further investigation conducted, Sookhoo and Caesar were arrested; they are currently on $750,000 bail.
