Derek Achong

Two men from Trinidad and a Unit­ed States na­tion­al have ad­mit­ted to ship­ping firearms and am­mu­ni­tion to this coun­try be­tween 2019 and last year. 

In a US De­part­ment of Jus­tice press re­lease is­sued, US At­tor­ney Roger Hand­berg, of the Mid­dle Dis­trict of Flori­da, an­nounced that Tevin O’Bri­an Oliv­er and Jameal Ka­ia Phillip, both 30 and from Trinidad, plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to smug­gle goods from the US. 

US na­tion­al Ed­ward Solo­man King III, 31, of Tam­pa, Flori­da, plead­ed guilty to dis­pos­ing of a firearm to an alien who has been ad­mit­ted to the US un­der a non-im­mi­grant visa. 

Oliv­er and Phillip are fac­ing a max­i­mum sen­tence of five years in fed­er­al prison, while King is fac­ing 15 years in prison. 

As part of the plea agree­ments, the men agreed to for­feit var­i­ous firearms and am­mu­ni­tion which fa­cil­i­tat­ed the of­fences. 

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, the men were part of a ring that un­law­ful­ly ex­port­ed firearms and firearm com­po­nents from Flori­da to T&T. 

“The firearms, which in­clud­ed pis­tols and long ri­fles, and re­lat­ed equip­ment were con­cealed with­in box­ing/fight­ing equip­ment, speak­ers, and oth­er house­hold items to avoid de­tec­tion by law en­force­ment and cus­toms au­thor­i­ties,” the re­lease said. 

It stat­ed that King as­sist­ed Phillip and Oliv­er in ac­quir­ing and trans­fer­ring firearms in the Tam­pa area. 

“Con­spir­a­tors al­so ac­quired firearms from dif­fer­ent sell­ers through straw pur­chas­es, false­ly rep­re­sent­ing the iden­ti­ties of the ac­tu­al pur­chasers and re­cip­i­ents of the firearms, as well as their ul­ti­mate des­ti­na­tion,” it said. 

It not­ed that around April 7, 2021, Oliv­er shipped a pack­age con­tain­ing four pis­tols from Mi­a­mi to Trinidad. The firearms were seized by lo­cal law en­force­ment of­fi­cials at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, lat­er that month. 

The case was in­ves­ti­gat­ed by US Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty In­ves­ti­ga­tions (HSI) and the US Bu­reau of Al­co­hol, To­bac­co, Firearms and Ex­plo­sives (ATF) with the as­sis­tance of the T&T Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty’s Transna­tion­al Or­gan­ised Crime Unit, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), US Cit­i­zen­ship and Im­mi­gra­tion Ser­vices, US Cus­toms, and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion and the Flori­da De­part­ment of Law En­force­ment. 

It was pros­e­cut­ed by As­sis­tant US At­tor­ney Patrick Scrug­gs.