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St. Thomas Man Sentenced for Cocaine Trafficking
A Dominican Republic national was sentenced to 135 months in prison for trafficking over 1,000 kilograms of cocaine.
Dany Perez-Brito, 45, was one of three individuals apprehended on December 11, 2018 onboard a go-fast vessel loaded with over 5,000 bales containing a total of approximately 1,132 kilograms of cocaine. The go-fast vessel was detected by a United States Coast Guard (USCG) aircraft about 65 nautical miles north of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
According to court documents, Perez-Brito admitted to having conspired to transport the cocaine by boat from Venezuela to Puerto Rico, for which he expected to be paid $200,000. Perez-Brito led authorities on a ten-hour chase in international waters between Puerto Rico and St. Thomas until the go-fast boat finally became dead in the water approximately 96 nautical miles north of St. Thomas.
The case was being investigated by the USCG, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Air and Marine Operations (AMO), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Assistant U.S. Attorney Meredith J. Edwards is prosecuting the case, which is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation.
OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach. Additional information about the OCDETF Program can be found at https://www.justice.gov/OCDETF.
Perez-Brito’s sentence is a result of a coordinated effort between law enforcement agencies to combat transnational crime. The sentence sends a strong message to those involved in the trafficking of narcotics that they will be held accountable for their actions.
Key Facts
- State: Virgin Islands
- Category: Drug Trafficking|Fraud & Financial Crimes|Violent Crime|Sex Crimes|Cybercrime|Public Corruption|Weapons|Human Trafficking|White Collar Crime|Organized Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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