UPDATED: Barry Dataram caught in Suriname

Last Updated on Friday, 14 October 2016, 20:24 by Denis Chabrol

by Ivan Cairo

Barry Dataram entering the Public Service Department’s compound at Vlissengen Road and D’Urban Street to appear before Inquiry Commissioner Brigadier Brewster Lovell. (FILE PHOTO).

Self-confessed Guyanese drug lord Barry Dataram was caught Friday afternoon by police in neighboring Suriname. Acting on a tip a police squad raided a home in Latour, south of the capital Paramaribo where the fugitive was hiding.

He was nabbed along with his common-law wife ,Anjanie Boodnaraine by Suriname’s Special SWAT Team.

He and Boodnaraine fled Guyana several weeks before City Magistrate, Judy Latchman acquitted her and two men while sentencing him to five years imprisonment.

According to one source Dataram, who was caught around 4.00 P.M. local time, urinated himself when the heavily armed police squad confronted him.

Dataram was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment in absentia by a City Magistrate Latchman  on September 27, 2016 while his wife and two co-defendants were acquitted. He was also fined G$ 164,286,000 for possession of 129 kilo cocaine for the purpose of trafficking at his home. The drugs were seized during a raid at his home on April 16, 2015.

The United States (US) has long wanted Dataram extradited to face trial in that country for drug trafficking.

Dataram is the second Guyanese fugitive drug lord that has been apprehended by Suriname police after they fled to the neighboring country. In 2006 Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan was arrested in Paramaribo and subsequently handed over to the US authorities. In 2009 Khan was sentenced to a 40 years jail-term for drug trafficking and illegal arms possession by a federal judge in the US.