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(CNS): Renae Hamilton (35) and Dorman Dowaine Salmon (39), who were convicted in April of importing 51 fentanyl pills and laundering around $70,000, which they made selling ganja, were sentenced to nine years and six months in jail on Friday by Justice Emma Peters. The couple were found guilty largely on the basis of evidence from their phones presented at trial. The judge described their dealing as a professional drug business. They mostly sold ganja, but had progressed into supplying fentanyl, despite knowing the dangers of the synthetic opioid. The pair had imported the drug through a courier service. It had been secreted in a package, sent from California and addressed to Salmon, which contained boots and clothes. However, the package was intercepted by Customs and Border Control, which allowed a controlled delivery and arrested Hamilton when she came to pick it up. Hamilton and Salmon, neither of whom previously had a criminal record, had had a long relationship, but at trial they had turned on each other. Nevertheless, the judge said the evidence indicated that they were equally vested in the importation of the pills and both had photographs of the package on their phones even before it arrived in the Cayman Islands. There were also clear signs that they were running a drug operation with a regular clientele. “They were partners, in both senses of the word,” the judge stated as she delivered her ruling. The couple, who are originally from Jamaica, have two children together. Salmon also has a child with his Caymanian wife, from whom he is separated. Hamilton was in the Cayman Islands on a work permit before her arrest. This was not the first seizure of fentanyl in the Cayman Islands, but it is the largest so far. While this drug has not yet taken hold in these islands, its appearance here is concerning, as it is much more potent than other opioids and more frequently leads to overdoses, increasing the dangers of pain medication addiction, which is a global epidemic. Justice Peters said that, had it not been for the work of CBC officers, these tablets would have been sold on Cayman’s streets. As she outlined her sentencing decision, the judge noted the deadly nature of fentanyl, something Hamilton and Salmon were clearly aware of, since they had press releases on their phones from CBC warning about the drug. Taking into consideration the argument made by prosecutor Brian Treadwell that the crimes involved significant planning, multiple transactions across jurisdictions and countries, and posed serious risks to both public health and the Cayman Islands’ reputation, Justice Peters arrived at an eight-year sentence in relation to the importation, regardless of mitigating circumstances and the fact that they had no previous convictions. The investigation had also found that between January 2021 and May 2022, the couple had laundered profits from drug dealing through money transfer services to the United States and Jamaica. To do the transactions, which amounted to more than CI$70,000, the pair had enlisted unwitting friends to send the cash by providing fabricated explanations for why they needed their help. While their defence attorneys, Keith Myers and Clayton Phuran, had argued that not all of the money came from drug dealing, the money was still ordered forfeited. The judge added another 18 months to the sentence for money laundering, which she said would run consecutively, bringing the total to nine and a half years behind bars.
