Businessman sentenced to 3 years for trafficking ganja

…club owner remanded on similar charge

Two businessmen appeared at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts on Monday to face separate drug trafficking charges. In one of the cases, 46-year-old Troy Jacobs, a businessman of Penny Lane, South Ruimveldt, Georgetown, was found guilty of trafficking seven pounds of marijuana.

He was jailed for three years and fined $2,367,000 by Magistrate Annette Singh before whom he had been on trial. Jacobs, along with two other men, a 76-year-old of Region Seven (Potaro-Siparuni) and a 44-year-old barber of Newton Kitty, Georgetown, were jointly charged in February 2021. Days after they were charged, Michael Solomon of Agricola, East Bank Demerara (EBD), was also charged and he admitted to giving the 76-year-old visually-impaired man the drug.
He was subsequently sentenced to four years in jail and fined $2.3 million.
According to reports, on February 12, 2021, Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) ranks intercepted a car the trio was in along Homestretch and Mandela Avenues, Georgetown.
A search of the vehicle unearthed a parcel containing a quantity of Cannabis sativa.
At Jacobs’ initial court appearance, his lawyer Adrian Thompson had submitted that while his client was the owner of the vehicle, he was unaware of what was inside the bag.

He had also told the court that two other occupants were in the vehicle when it was stopped, therefore, there was no evidence implicating Jacobs in the commissioning of the offence.
Prior to being convicted, Jacobs had been out on $500,000 bail on the condition that he lodged his passport and report to the Police periodically pending the determination of his trial.

Remanded
Meanwhile, Royston Peniston of Festival City, North Ruimveldt, Georgetown, the owner of the popular Blue Iguana Night Club in Alberttown, Georgetown, was on Monday remanded on a similar charge. His court appearance comes three days after he was nabbed with a quantity of cocaine at his residence. The 44-year-old businessman called “Fat Joe” was arraigned before Principal Magistrate Sherdel Isaacs-Marcus at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts.
It is alleged that on February 3, he had 2.178 kilograms of cocaine in his possession for the purpose of trafficking. According to CANU, the drug has a street value of $2.1 million.
Peniston was remanded to prison until April 3.
On the day in question, CANU ranks swooped down on the businessman’s property at Festival City where they intercepted him with two hardcover suitcases in his possession. A subsequent search of the suitcases in his presence revealed a quantity of whitish powdery substance suspected to be cocaine. As such, Peniston was arrested and escorted to CANU Headquarters.