CaribWorldNews, WEST PALM BEACH, FL, Tues. Nov. 10, 2009: A Bahamian national will have to spend the next 144 months in prison for conspiring to import cocaine into the United States.
U.S. District Court Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks sentenced Mark Pinder, 41, to jail time for the cocaine importation. Also jailed was Parson Exana, 38, a former resident of Miramar, Florida who will spend 108 months in prison.
The two were arrested by ICE agents during an undercover enforcement operation on the high seas and received approximately 297 kilograms of cocaine from Pinder in a vessel-to-vessel transfer.
The cocaine was subsequently transported to Palm Beach County. On May 26, law enforcement agents and officers conducted a controlled delivery of the 297 kilograms of cocaine to Pinder and Exana, in Jupiter, Fla. Pinder and Exana were arrested at that time.
The combined investigation targeted individuals who use maritime vessels to smuggle drugs into South Florida from the Bahamas.
