Vincentians convicted in BVI for $1m in cocaine

Three Vincentians, Dexter Chance, Gareth McDowall and Carlos Sutherland, were on Friday, October 7, found guilty in relation to a drug bust, which took place in Tortola, British Virgin Islands in January 2008.{{more}}

According to an online article by the BVIPLATINUM.COM, Senior Magistrate Valerie Stephens delivered the guilty verdict against Tortola native Dale Nibbs and the three Vincentian men, who were extradited from St. Vincent and the Grenadines to stand trial in the British Virgin Islands.

Two other men from the BVI, Asif Glasgow and Coy Penn were freed after Magistrate Stephens found them not guilty.

On January 23, 2008, the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force seized and searched a chartered catamaran moored at Hodges Creek and found some 59 kilos of cocaine on board the vessel, worth over US$1 million.

On June 16, 2010, after being refused a Habeas Corpus application by the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal, Chance, McDowall and Sutherland were transported from St. Vincent to Tortola by chartered plane to answer the charges.

The local trio were charged with the importation of cocaine. The men from Tortola were charged with the importation of cocaine, unlawful possession of cocaine and conspiracy to supply cocaine.

Sutherland will be sentenced on November 9, McDowall on October 26 and Chance and Nibbs on November 1.

The article added that Nibbs was found not guilty on the charge of unlawlful possession of cocaine charge and guilty on two other charges.

The article went on to say that the crown called some twenty witnesses during the trial, including their star witness Vincentian Chesley Balkaran, who pleaded guilty in 2008 in relation to the same drug bust. He was sentenced to four years in prison.