A local boat captain has been arrested in a multi-million dollar drug case in the United States.
Police say accused drug dealer Wayne Stout Jr is also the target of an ongoing money laundering investigation.
According to court documents seen by BVI News, Stout was arrested following a surveillance operation carried out by the Department of Homeland Security, which involved another man – Avery Lans.
Reports show Lans had already served 25 years of a 40-year sentence for second-degree murder in the neighboring US Virgin Islands (USVI) before receiving a pardon from former USVI Governor John de Jongh after his release.
Investigators said they followed Stout as he rented a car and took officers to a storage unit in Orlando, Florida, before handing a gym bag to Lans in a restaurant parking lot.
When they followed Lans, he reportedly began driving erratically, which investigators believe was a tactic used to evade pursuit. During this chase, Lans allegedly threw away the bag Stout gave him and it was later discovered to contain nearly 12 pounds of cocaine inside.
Officers then obtained a search warrant for the storage facility that Stout had previously accessed. There, officers discovered three large coolers containing 109 bricks of suspected cocaine.
Officers said each brick weighed at least 1 kilogram and explained that a kilogram of cocaine was worth around $30,000.
Both men were later arrested and arraigned in court on charges of conspiracy to possess 5 kilos or more of cocaine.
Stout was scheduled to appear before Judge Melissa Damian on June 8, where prosecutors asked that bail be denied.
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