Fugitive drug trafficker Barry Dataram and his wife, Anjanie Boodnarine, were yesterday afternoon captured by law enforcement officials in Suriname and Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan said he has requested that he be returned as quickly as possible to Guyana.
The capture of Dataram, who fled ahead of his sentencing late last month for cocaine trafficking, was confirmed by acting Crime Chief Hugh Jessemy.
Stabroek News was reliably informed that acting on information received, ranks from the Suriname police corps’ SWAT team raided a house located in southern Paramaribo, where the couple was held.
Up to yesterday, local investigators were awaiting word from their counterparts in Suriname on whether the two were to face any criminal charge/s before arrangements would be made to have them sent back to Guyana.
Ramjattan, asked yesterday how soon Dataram will be deported to Guyana, told Stabroek News that he has requested that it be done as quickly as possible. “I have signaled to the Minister in Suriname I would like him as early as possible and I know that the Commissioner of Police (acting) David Ramnarine and (Customs Anti-narcotics Unit head James) Singh have been in contact with leading officers there to get him back here as early as possible,” he stressed.
“I want to commend the efforts of all persons over here and in Suriname who have managed to … ensure that the long arm of the law get these offenders,” he added.
Singh, meanwhile, told Stabroek News that not only was he personally pleased to see the fugitive’s capture but that it sends a signal to other criminals that law enforcement will inevitably catch up with them.
“I am here waiting to see him—that I can tell you. It is good news people and as I have said before, people can run but they can’t hide. The law always catches you in the end,” he added.
“The fact that he has been convicted before the courts, I guess you can say that justice has been done. That is life. You can run but you can’t hide because in the end the law always catches up with you. Good shall always overcome,” he added.
Dataram, in his absence, was found guilty of possession of narcotics for trafficking and in addition to a 60-month sentence, he was slapped with a $164 million fine on September 27.
He, along with Boodnarine, Kevin Charran, and Trevor Gouveia were on trial for possession of cocaine for trafficking after the discovery of 129.230 kilogrammes of cocaine (equivalent to 284 pounds) of the drug at a Silver Dam, Fourth Avenue, Diamond Housing Scheme house on April 16, 2015. Boodnarine, Charran and Gouveia were acquitted owing to insufficient evidence.
Only last week, the Guyana Police Force issued a wanted bulletin for Dataram and Budnarine.
Since their disappearance, authorities had suspected that they had fled to neighbouring Suriname using forged foreign travel documents. Dataram’s escape was seen as a major embarrassment for the security services here and put particular scrutiny on the judiciary and the police force with regards to the granting of bail and the monitoring of high profile defendants.
Ramjattan yesterday gave no indication that there a local probe ongoing at this end to determine how Dataram managed to leave Guyana undetected.
“He might have been tipped off that he was to be convicted, probably by his own legal advisors ….he might have advised himself,” he said, before reminding that Dataram was on bail when he left the country illegally.
“If I put police to look at everyone on bail, it will be extremely difficult,” Ramjattan further said, while adding that law enforcement authorities have their eyes on narco-traffickers but Dataram managed to “get under the radar.”
The situation had prompted President David Granger to call for “a greater level of alertness” on the part of the magistracy in matters such as Dataram’s. He had also said that a lack of resources to police the country’s borders was in part responsible for the convicted drug trafficker being able to flee.
