Sixty-three-year-old Lena Narine aka ‘Aunty Lena’, who was earlier in this year busted by the Customs Anti-Narcotic Unit (CANU), appeared yesterday in a city court for the start of her trial on the charge of trafficking in ecstasy pills.
The trial in Court 1 of the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court saw five CANU Officers, who were involved in the drug bust and investigation, giving evidence against Narine before Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan. During the proceedings, 20 photographs taken during the CANU operation, were marked and tendered to the court to be exhibited as evidence. Additionally, over 15 envelopes containing both samples of the ecstasy pills and photos marked as exhibits were tendered as evidence to the court by one of the witnesses.
Narine, along with four others, were arrested and escorted to CANU Headquarters on March 29th, 2022 after they were busted at Lot 295 Shantiniketan Street, Prashad Nagar, Georgetown, and a quantity of ecstasy and 11.4 Kilogram of cocaine with a street value of $12.5 million were found.
In the trial proceedings, one of the witnesses disclosed that during the operation, 12 small, blue transparent zip-lock bags containing 10 blue pills each were recovered and one large transparent zip-lock bag containing 60 more blue pills was discovered. Along with the blue pills, five small transparent zip-lock bags contained 10 orange pills each, while 10 pink pills were found in five other small transparent zip-lock bags. Ten reddish coloured pills were found in five other zip-lock bags. According to the prosecution, the ecstasy pills which Narine allegedly had in her possession amounted to 266 grams and had a street value of $400,000.
The four other suspects previously appeared in court on April 1st before Principal Magistrate Sherdel Isaacs-Marcus on the trafficking of cocaine charge. All four suspects pleaded not guilty and were granted $500,000 bail each. At the said hearing, Narine was placed on $1 million bail as she faced two separate charges. Narine was jointly charged [with the four suspects] for trafficking in cocaine; separately, Narine was charged for trafficking in ecstasy pills. Narine, who pleaded not guilty to both charges, was represented by Attorney-at-Law Dexter Smartt.
