The largest drug case in the Virgin Islands, as one defense lawyer called it, began in District Court this week in front of 16 jury members and Judge Thomas Moore. By week's end, testimony had been heard from various U.S. Coast Guard officers, FBI agents and the captain of the Panamanian cargo ship holding 2,193 kilos of cocaine that prosecutors charge originated with a Colombian drug lord.
Opening statements from Assistant U.S Attorney Nelson Jones promised to show evidence linking 11 Adriatik crew members to the charge of conspiracy to distribute cocaine on the high seas. But defense attorneys for the crew—all laborers, cooks, or machinists who earned up to $400 a month in wages at sea—claim that their non-English-speaking clients weren't aware of the drugs stashed in one of the ship's tanks, and that it was in fact the captain and the first mate, both prosecution witnesses, that knew of the stash found on Nov. 10, 1999, amid 800 tons of sugar.
"This is the biggest trial I've seen in my 21 years of practice on the Virgin Islands," said Fred Vialet, lawyer for Adriatik machinist Pedro Valdez. "It's like a James Bond story."
The Adriatik was headed to Suriname from Baranquilla, Colombia, on the Magdalena River carrying the sugar. At some point while the boat was on the river, a smaller vessel carrying the drugs approached the Adriatik and began to unload the contraband with the help of the crew, prosecutors allege. The drugs were then hidden in cargo tank number three on the left side of the ship.
The Adriatik was stopped off Trinidad's west coast by a Coast Guard team aboard the British warship Northumberland. According to Coast Guard Lt. Michael Moyers, leader of the team that initially boarded the boat, the ship was covered in diesel oil, a tactic often used to conceal drugs against detection instruments.
In the first day of testimony, Moyers testified that he believed that the Adriatik's captain, Luis Perez-Oviedo, was untruthful about the ship's whereabouts and that footprints on the sugar in the cargo area had indicated drugs may have been on board.
Four witnesses for the prosecution took the stand Wednesday, all of them U.S. Coast Guard seamen testifying about the vessel and its crew. Lt. Gregory Thomas said, "It's impossible that they (the crew members) didn't know there were two tons of cocaine on the vessel" given their job duties, which ranged from cook to mechanic to engineer. Thomas, senior law enforcement officer in charge of the search, added that while he received no notice from the Coast Guard that that there may have been cocaine on the Adriatik, the crew seemed nervous answering his questions and the physical condition of the ship was strange when he boarded.
"Containers weren't aligned on board, which made me think there was an unequal weight of some sort on the starboard side of the ship," he testified. It took 10 to 12 men 18 hours to make a 20-foot tunnel to the left wing tank that held the drugs.
The third day of testimony in the trial featured six witnesses, including three special agents with the FBI and U.S. Customs Special Agent Brian McCormick. By McCormick's account, the drugs belonged to Colombian drug lord Alberto "Caracol" Orlandez-Gamboa, but the two-ton Adriatik shipment was put together by the recently deceased San Juan Fidel Garcia "Chesperito" Pajuelo. Pajuelo hired Capt. Perez-Oviedo and gave him an advance of $25,000; Perez-Oviedo testified he was paid to take the Adriatik to Canada where the cargo was to be dropped off. Prosecutor Jones displayed a signed hand-drawn map by the captain of the planned route that was given to McCormick when he questioned Perez-Oviedo on Nov. 13, 1999.
"The crew was told that they would take drugs," said Perez-Oviedo in his three-hour testimony on Friday. He and the 11 crew members had a meeting with Pajuelo to discuss it.
"He didn't inform them where drugs would be taken," Perez-Oviedo said. Only he and Sergio Sanchez, the first mate knew that.
McCormick said the two men feared retaliation by the Colombian drug cartel. "Both men expressed concern for their families for retribution for cooperating on the Adriatik," he said. "There's been talk, but no actions to protect the families," McCormick told the defense when pressed about whether their testimony will result in their being placed in witness security.
The trial was expected to go on for two weeks, but Jones said that it will probably be longer. The crew members are expected to testify in their own defense as well. The trial will resume on Tuesday.
