DRUG BUST AT KENNEDY
13 nabbed in Guyana cocaine pipeline
BY ANTHONY M. DESTEFANO
STAFF WRITER
Newsday
April 7, 2004
A nearly two-year probe of drug smuggling from Guyana led to the arrest yesterday of 13 people, mostly living in Queens and Brooklyn, on charges they were part of a ring that brought in more than 800 pounds of cocaine, officials said.
The drugs, which investigators said were largely smuggled into Kennedy Airport in false-sided suitcases carried by passengers from Georgetown, Guyana, were distributed through New York City street dealers. The ring is believed to have generated $10 million in two years from the operation.
Yesterday's bust brought to 83 the number of people charged in the investigation, said Martin Ficke, special agent in charge of the New York office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Officials with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn said Sabrina Budhram, 36, and her husband, Arnold Budhram, 38, who are living in Floral Park, were accused in federal criminal complaints of laundering $10 million in drug proceeds through their inactive textile trading company. The business accounts of the firm, Sabena Manufacturing and Sales of Floral Park, were used to launder the drug funds and generate cash, which the ring attempted to export, Ficke said. He added that $258,000 in cash was seized from suspected couriers.
Eleven were arrested in the city and one in Orlando, Fla., yesterday, while another was already in custody on unrelated charges, officials said.
The defendants, charged with assorted counts of conspiracy and money laundering, were scheduled to be arraigned in federal court in Brooklyn late yesterday. If convicted, those arrested yesterday face maximum prison terms that range from 20 years to life.