A Guyanese who allegedly attempted to smuggle over two pounds of cocaine into the US in an effort to settle a debt was busted at the John F. Kennedy Airport and is now sitting in a New York jail.
Raymond Orwin Ptolemy Harry arrived in the US on October 27th 2019 on a Caribbean Airlines flight and was stopped by a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) office to be questioned after clearing immigration.
According to Special Agent with the Department of Homeland Security Ryan W. Shipley, Harry at the time had a blue carry-on bag and a black suitcase which he had uplifted from the baggage claim area.
He was asked if anyone had given him anything to take to the US and he responded in the negative. A check of the two bags found that suspected cocaine, weighing 1272.8 grammes, was hidden in their walls.
Questioned, Harry admitted that he had received the luggage before his departure from someone in Guyana to whom he owed a debt.
“Harry told [the officer] in sum and substance that, in exchange for delivering the luggage to a contact in New York, his debt would be forgiven,” Shipley said in court papers seen by this newspaper.
He said when he received the empty luggage he had felt that something was concealed in the walls and admitted that he knew it was cocaine. He was given a telephone number for a contact when he landed at JFK and was told that the individual would have picked him up.
Harry has since appeared before Magistrate Judge Ramon E. Reyes, Jr and been remanded to prison. He was represented by federal defender Michael Weil at the time.
