A Guyanese man was last Tuesday busted at the JFK International Airport after he attempted to smuggle in 6,589.1 grammes of cocaine, which was packaged into small balls and dunked into a bottle of pepper sauce.
Joseph Alpha Lewis told authorities at the airport that the small balls in the pepper sauce were tamarind balls but when officials probed one of them, a white powdery substance was revealed.
Lewis has been charged and refused bail.
Lewis travelled to the US last Tuesday on Caribbean Airlines Flight 524 from Guyana and, according to Special Agent Shannon McFadden with the United States Department of Homeland Security, he was selected by a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer for examination. He presented a brown American Tourister suitcase and a black Converse backpack. During searches of his bags, officials discovered a yellow duty-free shopping bag in the brown suitcase. The duty-free bag contained a package wrapped with newspaper and clear tape that had a peppery scent.
“The package was opened and contained a liquid pepper sauce with what appeared to be small round objects wrapped in tape. The defendant stated, in sum substance, that the liquid pepper sauce contained tamarind balls. One of the small round objects was probed and revealed a white powdery substance, which field-tested positive for the presence of cocaine,” McFadden said in court documents seen by this newspaper.
Lewis appeared before Magistrate Judge Roanne L Mann and was denied bail.
This latest bust in the US follows on the heels of another late last month when another man, Kenny Ritchie attempted to smuggle some 3.360 kilogrammes of cocaine sewn into two girdles he was wearing.
