Edmund Quincy Muntslag, a 33-year-old citizen of Suriname, was sentenced to 135 months in prison after being convicted of conspiring to flood New York City with hundreds of kilograms of cocaine. The sentence, handed down in Manhattan federal court by U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan, marks the end of a high-stakes international drug scheme that reached from the tarmac of Paramaribo to the underground networks of the U.S. drug trade.
Muntslag’s operation, run in tandem with Dino Bouterse — the son of Suriname’s president and self-declared head of the nation’s Counterterrorism Unit — targeted a fictitious Mexican cartel. Unbeknownst to them, the buyers were DEA confidential sources. In 2013, Bouterse provided authentic Surinamese passports with falsified IDs to these undercover agents, paving the way for what they believed would be a massive cocaine pipeline into the United States.
The plot advanced when Muntslag accepted $60,000 in cash to facilitate a 10-kilogram ‘test load’ of cocaine through the Paramaribo airport, where it was smuggled in luggage aboard a commercial flight bound for Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Corrupt airport employees, allegedly recruited by Muntslag, helped move the shipment. The pair believed the test run would lead to larger, 100-kilogram shipments routed through the same method and sold on New York streets.
The operation unraveled on July 27, 2013, when Trinidadian law enforcement, working in coordination with the DEA, seized the cocaine in Port-of-Spain. Muntslag was arrested there on August 29, 2013. Hours later and thousands of miles away, Bouterse was taken into custody in Panama City, Panama — both on the same day, both on the hook for one of the DEA’s most audacious international stings in years.
Muntslag was convicted on March 22, 2016, following a four-day jury trial before former U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin. He was found guilty of conspiring to import five kilograms or more of cocaine into the United States. In addition to his 135-month sentence, he was ordered to pay a $100 special assessment. His co-defendant, Dino Bouterse, 43, pled guilty on August 29, 2014, to attempting to provide material support to Hezbollah, using a firearm in a drug-trafficking crime, and cocaine importation conspiracy, and was sentenced to 195 months in prison on March 10, 2015.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whose office prosecuted the case through the Terrorism and International Narcotics Unit, credited the DEA’s Special Operations Division as instrumental in dismantling the ring. He also acknowledged the DEA’s field offices in Miami, Panama City, Port-of-Spain, and Bogota, as well as the Government of Trinidad and Tobago and the DOJ’s Office of International Affairs. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael D. Lockard and Andrew DeFilippis led the prosecution.
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Key Facts
- State: New York
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Drug Trafficking
- Source: Official Source ↗
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