U.S., Guyana collaboration on security, counter-narcotics yields results - U.S. Charge d’ Affaires, Bryan Hunt

U.S. Charge d’Affaires, Bryan Hunt with then acting President Moses Nagamootoo at U.S. Embassy’s Reception marking the 239th Independence of the United States, at the Marriott Hotel in Kingston, Georgetown

The US_of_A is intimately and intricately involved in locations with the  presence of oil.

 

Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan:

drugs, dirty money

and the death squad

Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan was probably the most complete criminal in this country’s history. His guilty plea for trafficking in cocaine, witness tampering and gun running last March has robbed the nation of the detailed exposure of his criminal networks and relationships and leaves lots of questions unanswered.

Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan

Special Agent Cassandra Jackson of the United States Drug Enforcement Adminis-tration said it all. In her affidavit to support the charges against Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan, she told a Federal court in Brooklyn that “Khan was ultimately able to control the cocaine industry in Guyana, in large part, because he was backed by a paramilitary squad that would murder, threaten, and intimidate others at Khan’s directive.

Khan’s enforcers committed violent acts and murders on Khan’s orders that were directly in furtherance of Khan’s drug trafficking conspiracy.”

Drugs

According to Jackson, the US Government’s case was to establish that Khan was the leader of a “violent drug trafficking organisation” and that he and his co-conspirators obtained large quantities of cocaine and then imported the cocaine into the Eastern District of New York and other places for further distribution.

It was while he was managing his drug-smuggling business

in neighbouring Suriname that the

law finally caught up with Khan.

At home in Guyana, Khan seemed to enjoy a charmed existence of immunity from arrest and prosecution. His mistake, however, was to enter Suriname − a more law-abiding jurisdiction.

There, his cocaine-constructed house of cards collapsed with his dramatic arrest in Paramaribo.

Suriname’s Minister of Justice Chandrikapersad Santokhi announced on 15th June 2006 that four Guyanese − Shaheed Khan, Sean Belfield, Lloyd Roberts and Paul Rodrigues − were among 12 persons arrested in a law-enforcement operation which netted 213 kg of cocaine.

Two weeks later on 29th June, Khan was flown out of Johann Pengel International Airport, Paramaribo, on a Suriname Airways flight to Trinidad and Tobago. He was then handed over to immigration authorities upon arrival who then handed him over to US officials.

Less than 24 hours after being expelled from Suriname,

Khan was arraigned at the Brooklyn Federal Court in New York on 30th June on a charge of “conspiring to import cocaine” and was ordered to be detained at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn.

Khan’s arrest showed the stark contrast in the quality of governance between the two states. Suriname’s Chandrikapersad Santokhi deemed Shaheed Khan a threat to the national security of Guyana and Suriname and other countries and linked him to plots to assassinate government and judicial officials in that country.

According to Santokhi, international agencies, including those in the USA, had been looking for him.

On the other hand, Guyana’s Minister of Home Affairs at the time Gail Teixeira formally indicated to Suriname that the government had “no interest” in seeking Khan’s return at that time.

Chairman of the Central Intelligence Committee Dr Roger Luncheon

added preposterously that the Guyana Government could find “no compelling evidence” for Khan to be investigated.

The administration, in fact, seemed more concerned about the modalities of Khan’s arrest than the atrocities of his crimes.

Luncheon verbalized the administration’s concerns

by iterating “its principled objection to the forceful and unlawful removal of its citizen across jurisdictions.”

Robert Simmels

The beginning of the end of Khan’s criminal career as Guyana’s most notorious drug-smuggler might have been the publication of the US Department of State’s Inter-national Narcotics Control Strategy Report for 2005 which was released in March 2006.

The report for the first time named Khan and stated in part:

“Drug traffickers appear to be gaining a significant foothold in Guyana’s timber industry.

In 2005, The Guyana Forestry Commission granted a State Forest Exploratory Permit for a large tract of land in Guyana’s interior to Aurelius Inc., a company controlled by known drug trafficker Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan.

Such concessions in the remote interior may allow drug traffickers to establish autonomous outposts beyond the reach of Guyanese law enforcement.”

The publication of the Report not only froze the forestry transaction

but also sent a signal to the security forces to go after Khan

while the President and the Head of the Presidential Secretariat

were out of the country at the same time.

Enforcement operations

against Khan’s associates and properties

were aided by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Death squads

Khan was often accompanied by serving or former policemen,

usually from the dreaded Target Special Squad.

When he was arrested in Suriname, Paul Rodrigues, Lloyd Roberts and Sean Belfield were at his side.

Indeed, Khan made no attempt to conceal his activities and his connections with the authorities.

In a gratuitous display of hubris, he published a whole-page ‘Statement’ in the newspapers on 12th May 2006 boasting that “During the crime spree in 2002, I worked closely with the crime-fighting sections of the Guyana Police Force and provided them with assistance and information at my own expense.

My participation was instrumental in curbing crime during this period.”

Indeed, he seemed deeply involved in some sort of savage, shadowy activity when, on Wednesday 4th December 2002, a Guyana Defence Force patrol in the area of Good Hope, East Coast Demerara, intercepted and searched a vehicle which contained an arsenal of weapons.

The three-man hunting party discovered in the vicinity of the vehicle were Khan himself, Haroon Yahya and Sean Belfield, then a serving member of the Police Force.

The cache included M-16 assault rifles with night vision devices; Uzi sub-machine gun with silencer; Glock 9mm pistols; 12-gauge shotgun; other small calibre weapons; bullet-proof vests; helmets; a computer and other electronic gadgetry with digitised electronic maps and plans of Georgetown and certain targetted East Coast villages.

As a vital part of the death squad’s operations,

Khan was allowed to acquire intercept equipment

which enabled him to listen to the conversations

and determine the locations of his intended victims.

Peter Myers, Co-director of the UK firm Smith Myers

recently testified in court that the cellular intercept equipment

used by Khan had been sold to the Guyana Government.

Meyers identified the intercept equipment −

including an intercept receiver and two laptops −

and confirmed that it was sold

by the company’s Florida sales office

through the Fort Lauderdale-based Spy Shop

to the Guyana Government.

Dr Leslie Ramsammy

Testimony was led to the effect that

Minister of Health Dr Leslie Ramsammy

had purchased the equipment on behalf of the Guyana Government

and that Carl Chapman, a representative of Smith Myers Communi-cations, had travelled to Guyana to train Khan in its use.

Both the administration and Ramsammy strongly

denied having any connection with the equipment.

Khan’s boast that he masterminded

the suppression of the Troubles on the East Coast

by using his own “resources”

should not be regarded as an expression of altruism.

What motive other than murder

would one have with a wagonload of weapons

in the dead of night?

What drug-smuggler

would not attempt to expand his market,

extend his turf and eliminate his rivals?

Khan might have posed as

a self-proclaimed law enforcer

but in fact waged his own drug-driven gang war.

At this time,

Ronald Gajraj was Minister of Home Affairs and

Floyd McDonald was Commissioner of Police,

both of whom had their USA visas suspended.

The period of ‘the Troubles’ on the East Coast

is regarded as the most bloody phase

in Guyana’s post-Independence history,

during which dozens of men were shot to death

or even disappeared.

Of the numerous victims of violence,

it became impossible to determine exactly

who were the assailants and what were their motives.

Who stood to gain from

the execution of the deputy head of

the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit Vibert Inniss,

the kidnapping of entrepreneur

Brahmanand Nandalall,

the murder of businessman Harry Rambarran,

the attempted murder of the

Director of Public Prosecution Denis Hanoman-Singh

and the ‘Diwali massacre’ in Bourda?

Could these crimes have been perpetrated

by one or several competing cartels

to expand their territory

or to eliminate their enemies?

There are more questions than answers!

George Bacchus,

a self-confessed member of the death quad

first made public evidence of the squad’s crimes

and the possible involvement of high government officials.

A Presidential Commission of Inquiry

was established to investigate

whether Minister of Home Affairs Ronald Gajraj

was “involved in promoting, directing

or otherwise engaged in activities

which have involved the extra-judicial killing of persons.”

The inquiry found, however,

that there was no credible evidence against him.

Owing to the limited nature of the inquiry,

uncounted assassinations, executions,

murders and extra-judicial killings remained unsolved

and largely uninvestigated.

In the final analysis, civil society,

the public and aggrieved relatives

boycotted the Inquiry

after the star witness George Bacchus

was shot dead in his bed at home.

No evidence was led

to incriminate the minister.

Both Gajraj and Mc Donald

had left their key security posts

by February 2004.

Gail Teixeira was acting as Minister of Home Affairs

and Winston Felix had been appointed Commissioner of Police.

Under Felix, the special squad

which had been accused of numerous extra-judicial killings

and racketeering and was suspected of collaborating with Khan,

was dismantled and many of its members dismissed.

Khan, however,

was rich enough to retain relations

with most of the squad’s most notorious members

who were taken into his employ

as bodyguards, informants and more.

Selwyn Vaughn,

another self-confessed former member of the death squad,

recently provided fresh testimony of

Khan’s involvement in murder.

Ronald Waddell

Vaughn testified that Khan

ordered the execution of Ronald Waddell,

an anti-Government talk-show host,

at his home in Subryanville.

Immediately after the murder,

Khan is said to have reported the incident

to Dr Leslie Ramsammy, Minister of Health. 

Dr Leslie Ramsammy

The US Government had also accused Khan

of executing Donald Allison outside his home in Agricola

and Dave Persaud outside the Palm Court Restaurant in Georgetown.

Khan felt threatened

when the joint GDF-GPF operations

targetted his businesses in 2006.

He decided to strike back

by releasing recordings to media houses

of telephone conversations purportedly

involving the Commissioner of Police Winston Felix.

In a typical example of Guyana-style governance,

the administration seized the opportunity

not to prosecute Khan the felon

who admitted distributing the recording,

but to persecute Felix, its own commissioner.

Khan was elated and claimed that,

in releasing the recordings,

he was acting to

“expose, identify and curb corruption and incompetence”

in the police force.

The confrontation continued

with the Police Force publishing

a ‘wanted bulletin’ for Khan.

He disappeared from view

but took to issuing statements through his lawyers

and sponsoring advertisements in the press

in which he contended ludicrously

that he was perceived by persons in the USA,

the Police Force, the Defence Force

and the People’s National Congress party

as someone who had the will and capacity to fight crime

and to protect the people of Guyana against a coup d’état.

Dirty money

Khan’s criminal enterprise

was financed with dirty money

earned from drug-smuggling.

The US government charged

that a significant amount of the cocaine

dispatched by Khan went to

the Eastern District of New York for further distribution.

As an example,

it cited a Guyanese drug trafficking organisation −

the Queens Cartel −

based in Queens, New York,

which it said was supplied by Khan

and was said to have

distributed hundreds of kilogrammes of cocaine.

Khan is believed to have laundered

his drug-smuggling profits

through banks in New York through

the “Queen’s Cartel” to which he supplied cocaine.

Arnold and Sabrina Budhram,

accused of being Khan’s co-conspirators,

were arrested and charged with money laundering in April 2004

and their home and offices were searched by investigators

who gathered a large amount of evidential material.

According to court documents,

a handwritten “money and drug ledger”

found their home and bank records indicated that in 2001,

a company associated with the Budhrams

transferred money to a bank account

in the name of Khan’s wife and child.

At home in Guyana,

the extent of Roger Khan’s interests and properties

became evident only when the

Defence Force and the Police Force

launched their joint `Operation Centipede’ in March 2006.

By that time, the security situation

had taken a turn for the worst.

  Glenn Hanoman who is one of Khan’s lawyers,

confirmed that his client entered the property business

when he developed a housing scheme at

Good Hope, East Coast Demerara,

by building over 100 houses.

Soon afterwards,

Khan purchased a large expanse of land at

Blankenburg, West Coast Demerara,

where he built his second housing scheme,

called the Hibiscus Scheme.

Khan then embarked

on the construction of a third scheme,

at New Hope on the East Bank of Demerara.

Khan then launched

a fourth housing scheme at Farm,

also on the East Bank. 

Khan is also proprietor

of a timber company on Kaow Island

and had interests in several night clubs

and other enterprises.

Downfall

Khan was a crook.

At all material times over the past 15 years,

Khan’s criminal record was public knowledge.

His criminal career

began with a conviction in January 1992

in Montgomery County, USA,

for breaking and entering and theft.

While he was on probation for that offence,

he was arrested in Burlington, Vermont,

for receiving and possessing firearms

while being a convicted felon.

He was subsequently indicted and

was released on bail in November 1993

but fled the jurisdiction to Guyana in 1994

in order to avoid prosecution.

Despite being a felon and a fugitive from the law,

he was able to move about Guyana

with impunity and acquire property.

When asked to explain

how such a crook was able to purchase public land

that was put up for sale by the Guyana Sugar Corporation,

President Jagdeo answered

“Unless you have a conviction against a person,

then you can’t say you can’t tender for public land.”

The fact is that

everyone knew that Khan was already a convict

when he bought the properties!

Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan

was one of the most

complete criminals in Guyana’s history.

He acquired vast properties,

recruited serving police officers,

ordered executions,

imported and exported cocaine,

laundered millions of dollars,

possessed specialised intercept equipment and

armed himself with a wide assortment of handguns and ammunition.

All of this was possible

only because of

his special relationship

with the Jagdeo Guyana Government.

He enjoyed immunity

from an indulgent administration

and compliant law enforcement agencies.

Even now,

the Jagdeo administration

has made no attempt to conduct official inquiries

nor has the police force attempted to bring Khan

and his well-known accomplices to justice.

His successful application

to United States District Court Judge Dora L Irizarry

to plead guilty to trafficking in 150 kilogrammes of cocaine,

witness tampering

and gun-running,

is an anti-climax to a callous criminal career.

He will go to jail for a few years

but will leave many questions unanswered.

Darn too much roti.  Fat boy swell up more.

It is FUNNY that Bharat Marriot is the center of attraction.  CHANGE Dem Cunumunu said.  Dem Wall St, Picha Laka Picha, and Prof Cunumunu said Marriot was a waste of time and believeevery word the Criminal PNC said, even the one of turning Marriot into a hospital.  Laad Ah Mercy, these Morons are so STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!