Another Canadian fined for drugs

Another Canadian has been convicted in Barbados on drug charges.

John Nicholas Alexander Ortega, of Toronto, Ontario, Canada was the second person this week to plead guilty to charges of possession, possession with intent to supply, trafficking, and importation.

In outlining the facts, Station Sergeant Peter Barrow disclosed that the 44-year-old arrived at the Grantley Adams International Airport on an Air Canada flight on January 31.

After clearing immigration, he retrieved his luggage and proceeded to Customs where the baggage was searched. Forty vacuum-sealed packages containing vegetable matter were discovered in his suitcase.

Ortega admitted knowledge when asked to account for the drugs that weighed about 36.93 pounds, and he was handed over to police.

Magistrate Deidre McKenna, who presides over the Oistins Magistrates’ Court, ordered that Ortega pay a forthwith fine of $7 000 on the importation charge or spend 12 months in prison.

The Canadian was further fined an immediate $5 000 with the alternative of 12 months at Dodds.

He was convicted, reprimanded, and discharged on the possession charge, and reprimanded and discharged for the supply offence.

The convicted man, who was represented by attorneys-at-law Michael Lashley Q.C. and Sade Harris, was remanded to Dodds until the money is paid and is to be handed over to Immigration once that is done.

Earlier this week, Ashley May Turner-Petawaysin, a 29-year-old student from Ontario, Canada, was caught at the airport with 48 packages of marijuana. She was also remanded at Dodds pending payment of a $15 000 fine imposed by Magistrate McKenna.

Turner-Petawaysin had pleaded guilty to charges of possession, possession with intent to supply, trafficking, and importation of 53.9 pounds of cannabis.