Guyanese Heeralall Sukdeo, who has been charged in the United States with attempting to smuggle 268 kilogrammes of cocaine in a shrimp shipment, was granted US$500,000 bail last Thursday after he pleaded not guilty for the second time to the charge.
This not-guilty plea by Sukdeo, who has to surrender his passport and report to officials regularly as part of the bail requirements, means that the plea negotiation between the defence and the US prosecutors fell through.
According to a complaint unsealed last month in Brooklyn Federal Court, agents secretly removed the cocaine-filled shipment and tailed the container after it cleared customs on June 15. The container was delivered to an unidentified warehouse in Brooklyn, where agents spotted Sukdeo “together with others … organizing and supervising the unloading” of the shipment.
Sukdeo, a Lusignan businessman, had initially said he was innocent of any wrongdoing. “Sukdeo stated that he was present only in the vicinity of the truck containing the target shipment because he was curious about its contents,” US Homeland Security Special Agent Ryan Varrone stated in the complaint.
Sukdeo, 59, who is the owner of Sukdeo Sons Fishing, a shipping company based in Queens, New York, also has a branch of his company at Lusignan. His local address is Courbane Park, Annandale, East Coast Demerara.
Following Sukdeo’s arrest, the shipper of the shrimp Imrain Khan turned himself over to local authorities but was later released.
