RINGWOOD — A Ringwood man is facing life in prison after federal officials charged him with importing large quantities of cocaine from South America to New Jersey on his privately-owned jets.
Khamraj Lall, 50, was charged in federal court in Newark on Friday with importing at least 5 kilograms of cocaine from his native home of Guyana on private planes between April 2011 and November 2014, acting U.S. Attorney William E. Fitzpatrick said.
Lall is also accused of laundering the proceeds in banks in New Jersey and New York, smuggling hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash back to Guyana, and skirting financial transaction regulations to avoid detection, according to a statement from the attorney’s office.
“Lall performed, or had others perform, over 1,287 cash deposits totaling approximately $7,549,775 into more than 20 different bank accounts,” according to the statement.
Federal prosecutors allege Lall of Coventry Way imported the drugs under the cover of Exec Jet Club, a private jet club incorporated by Lall in 2011. The company operated out of airports in Guyana and Florida until Lall’s arrest November 2014 when customs officials in Puerto Rico discovered $620,000 in cash hidden in a plane co-piloted by Lall, as first reported by inewsguyana.com.
Lall, described on the club website as a Guyanese businessman and aircraft pilot who had been flying since 1994, was out on bail when he was arrested in July 2015 and initially charged for his role in an alleged cocaine trafficking scheme, records show. That arrest stemmed from a federal probe that resulted in the arrest of nine other men, eight from Rochester, New York, in February 2015.
Lull has been in federal custody since his arrest. In March 2016, he was sentenced to a year in jail for smuggling money and ordered to forfeit the cash and other assets.
The charges announced last week call for a minimum of 10 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life in prison with a $10 million fine. The other charges announced last week could give Lall a combined 25 years in jail.
The indictment, dated Aug. 28, seeks the forfeiture of Lall’s Coventry Way home as well as properties in Citra and Kissimmee in Florida and Hamptonburgh, New York, court records show. Two jets, a Citation II and a Westwind I, a Lexus SUV, assets and rights owned by Exec Jet Club, and more than $442,000 in cash are also subject to seizure, records show.
From 1995 to 2010, Lall owned and operated a trucking and warehouse company in Jersey City. On the Exec Jet Club website, Lall is also referred to as a 15-year freelance flight instructor at Ringwood Airport, which does not exist. Tim Wagner, manager of the nearby Greenwood Lake Airport, said he had never heard of Lall.
According to law enforcement officials, street value for a kilogram of cocaine, which is slightly over 2 pounds, varies greatly based on location and quality, but can run between $27,000 to $38,000.
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