Jamaican man pleads guilty to arms trafficking to the island in US Court

By Stabroek News On In Jamaica News |

(Jamaica Gleaner) A Jamaican man believed to be living in the United States (US) illegally has admitted, in a federal court in Florida, that he was the person behind a shipment of high-powered rifles and pistols along with thousands of bullets that were intercepted at the wharf in Kingston in 2017.

Jermaine Rhooms pleaded guilty in July to international arms trafficking for sending seven rifles, eight pistols and approximately 3,011 assorted rounds of ammunition in a barrel that was seized at a container warehouse on July 20, 2017, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has confirmed.

Rhooms’ conviction marks the culmination of a joint investigation between the Jamaican police and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

He is to be sentenced on January 9 next year and, in a historic move, DPP Paula Llewellyn has been asked to attend court and outline how the illicit arms trade has affected Jamaica.

“I have been invited, along with two of my deputies, to attend the sentencing hearing and give a victim impact statement in respect of the impact of international arms trafficking on Jamaica,” Llewellyn told The Sunday Gleaner.

A senior law-enforcement official revealed that the case was cracked through good old-fashioned police work.

“We collected scientific evidence at the warehouse. When we checked it against our system, nothing came up, so we sent it to the Americans and that’s how Rhooms landed on our radar.”

In a jab at the Jamaican judiciary, the senior law-enforcement source said a decision was taken to repackage the weapons and send them to the American authorities for Rhooms to be prosecuted there.

“All now he would not be tried in Jamaica. And even if he was convicted, he would get, what, four months?” the source questioned.

Llewellyn steered clear of that assertion, explaining that the decision to allow US authorities to prosecute Rhooms was based on a “careful evaluation of all the circumstances”.

“I don’t want to get into some of it publicly, but after extensive discussions with two senior members of my staff who worked closely with law enforcement [Jamaican and US] and since he was domiciled there, we thought that it be best dealt with over there,” she said.

“The most important thing is that the interest of justice has been well served. To me, it matters not whether it’s in Jamaica or in the US. It shows the collaboration and cooperation between the prosecuting authorities and law enforcement in both our countries, which ultimately serves the ends of justice.”

According to newly released details, Jamaican law-enforcement authorities zeroed in on the Adolph Levy Warehouse on July 20, 2017 after the local intelligence community was alerted about two suspicious containers.

“The first container was searched and what appeared to be a decoy strategy was employed by the criminal. This was in the form of toy guns and what appeared to be useless household items,” one source revealed.

But the team hit pay dirt during a search of the second container when the guns and ammunition were found almost in plain sight in a blue barrel that was shipped in the name of ‘Roy Ricketts’ and consigned to ‘Eric Ricketts’ of a Kingston 20 address, one source disclosed.

“Based on what we saw, the shipper seemed to have had a lot of confidence that the shipment would have gone through without detection because, away from the fact that the weapons were lightly wrapped in various layers of tape and carbon papers, there was very little attempt to disguise them. They were almost at the top of the barrel,” the source continued.

Rhooms was deported from the United Kingdom to Jamaica in May 2008 after two drug-related convictions in April 2002 and February 2006, according to police sources. But months later, he reportedly ‘moved’ to the US and was arrested on drug charges in Florida in February last year.

Weapons found

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