Return of Caribbean Narco Kingpin ‘Shortman’

September 7, 2018 Crime , OPINION/NEWS , OTHER , South America

By

Ricardo Swire

In less than one year a Guyanese drug kingpin presently in an American prison could be free and deported to his native CARICOM country. Shaheed Roger Khan, aka Shortman is scheduled for release from the Federal Correctional Institution in Miami Florida on July 8, 2019. According to US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) data he was sentenced in October 2009 on charges that he conspired to import cocaine to the Eastern District of New York, between January 2001 and March 2006, plus witness tampering and illegal firearm possession.

In adherence to American law Shortman should be handed over to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on release for detention and deportation to Guyana. During the mid-2000s prisoner #03651-082 gave the orders for hundreds of contract killings in Guyana. The forty-six year old kingpin’s criminal empire was built around a cocaine trafficking network that used Guyanese construction and forestry businesses as fronts, for smuggling Colombian cocaine to America and laundering tainted cash.

As a “Death Squad” boss in Guyana Shortman paid each member of his personal security detail US$1,600 monthly, eight times more than their previous employment as members of the Guyana Police Force (GPF). During the 2002/2003 suppression of troubles on the East Coast Shortman worked closely with select GPF officers. In one scenario a Guyana Defense Force (GDF) patrol, covering the area of Good Hope East Coast Demerara, intercepted and searched a suspicious vehicle.

Shortman was travelling in the SUV accompanied by two other individuals including a serving member of the GPF. A confiscated cache included M-16 assault rifles with night vision capability. An Uzi sub-machine gun fitted with a silencer, Glock 9mm pistols, one 12-gauge shotgun, small caliber weapons, bullet-proof vests, ballistic helmets, one computer, digitized electronic maps and plans of Georgetown in addition to targeted East Coast villages.

CARICOM intelligence reports additionally noted Shortman’s public declaration of involvement with the Guyana Defense Force’s attempts to recover thirty-three missing AK-47 semi-automatic assault rifles. Shortman claimed he was the main intelligence source behind three senior GDF officers’ fluid knowledge of the weapons larceny. In June 2006 the Guyanese kingpin’s cocaine constructed house of cards collapsed with law enforcement’s dramatic arrest in Paramaribo.

The Suriname Police Counter-narcotics sting operation detained Shortman and three bodyguards. The quartet possessed two hundred and thirteen kilos of cocaine, Suriname’s biggest drug seizure that year. On 29th June 2006 the Guyanese kingpin was flown from Johann Pengel International Airport, Paramaribo onboard a Suriname Airways flight to Trinidad & Tobago. At Piarco International Airport he was handed over to immigration authorities who transferred him to American officials.