Baggage handlers at Princess Juliana International Airport were sentenced to jail on Wednesday by the trial court for attempting to smuggle 39 kg of marijuana from Canada into Sint Maarten.
The Criminal Information Service (CID) has been advised that two airport employees are believed to be involved in a drug smuggling operation at Juliana Airport on May 15, 2022.
That day, the Alpha team of police detectives seized three suitcases containing some 39,335 grams of marijuana. The contraband had been smuggled into the airport in checked baggage aboard WestJet Airlines flight WS2652 from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Four people were arrested, three of them for their involvement in the drug trafficking operation. Two of these men, aged 43 and 54 respectively, were brought before a judge on Wednesday. They were convicted, although they both denied the charges.
A fourth man, RMR, was also arrested on May 15, after trying to obstruct the investigation by attacking a police officer. He was released after questioning.
Video footage taken in the airport's baggage hall shows two individuals removing three suitcases from the belt and setting them aside. The customs officers were very surprised to see that the three suitcases were filled with 75 packets of different types of marijuana.
Both men denied involvement in a drug smuggling operation and claimed they had set aside the three suitcases to be shipped to the Harmony of the Seas cruise ship as part of VIP services for air passengers.
However, the handwritten claim tags that one of the two men was seen attaching to the suitcases did not bear the names of the passengers on board the WestJet flight, but those of the Delta Airlines flights on May 8 and May 10.
Moreover, the Harmony of the Seas was not in port in Sint Maarten on May 15, but three days earlier, on May 12.
The prosecutor considered that it was proven that B. and R. were not engaged in performing VIP services on the day of their arrest, but in importing drugs from Canada.
The two men were sentenced to 36 months, six of which were suspended, and three years probation, in accordance with the prosecutor's requisitions. _AF
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