Customs officer charged in drug bust

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Customs Officer Desmond Lewis has been charged with possession of one pound of marijuana and intent to supply it to others, after the contraband was found in his vehicle at Golden Grove on Monday.

He was busted during an operation by the Office of National Drug and Monday Laundering Control Policy (ONDCP). Lewis’s case is linked to the same operation in which 37-year-old Laurie Kenroy Marshall was shot and captured in Bolans around noon on Monday.

A source close to the matter confirmed to OBSERVER media that the drugs confiscated by ONDCP – and valued at $4,500 – were recently smuggled into Antigua through the Port Authority.

In a media release yesterday, the ONDCP said Lewis is from Jennings and has been a Customs officer for four-and-a-half years.

Meantime, the organisation said Marshall tried to escape their dragnet on Monday.

The ONDCP said the suspect was “driving dangerously, threatening an officer’s safety” when he was shot. It is alleged that he attempted to run over one of the officers who had set up the road block to stop him.

When intercepted, four packages of cannabis – suspected to have also been brought into the country via the Port – were found in the vehicle Marshall was driving.

The ONDCP said that up to last evening, Marshall, who was shot in the leg, was in stable condition at the Mount St. John’s Medical Centre.

Once discharged, he would be detained for questioning as the probe continues.

The ONDCP said Marshall is known to law enforcement locally and internationally, and has been previously convicted of several drug related offences.

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