“I was going to do some shopping in Paramaribo,” a 26-year-old woman charged with departing Guyana from an unauthorized port told the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday.

Acting Chief Magistrate Melissa Robertson ordered Leeta McRae to pay a fine of $20,000 or the alternative of 12 months incarceration after she pleaded guilty to the charge.
McRae of 518 ‘A’ Field Sophia, on June 16, at Springlands, departed Guyana by sea from a port not authorized for such departure.

The woman told the court that she bought and sold clothing. “I was going to take the ferry… I reach there at 1.30 and [the] ferry had left,” McRae told the court, explaining that she then decided to travel to Suriname via an illegal port.

The prosecution submitted that the vehicle in which McRae had been travelling was intercepted by Suriname authorities and a quantity of narcotics was found in the car.

The woman was fined and detained for four months in Suriname and was then deported to Guyana, the prosecution said.

McRae said that she was charged for possession of cocaine in Suriname but insisted that she had only been travelling in the car with other persons when the narcotic was found.