More details are emerging about how two women from the Coast were arrested in a cocaine bust in Florida, USA March 8. Last week, The Times identified them as Semarie Paul, 39, of Ocho Rios, St Ann and Simone Walters, 34, from Coloraine, Oracabessa, St Mary. Walters’ last known address in the U.S. is Laurel, Maryland. Walters is a past student of St. Mary High school and is a former employee of the Tax Administration Department in Port Maria and St Ann’s Bay. She left Jamaica last year on the overseas work programme.
Paul has a child with one of Jamaica’s leading dance hall artistes but not much else is known about her.(((more details)
The two women were arrested along with five members of the crew of a Norwegian cruise line, Norwegian Sun. According to Tampa police, the ship’s crew members had smuggled seven pounds of cocaine from Honduras to Tampa, Florida where they linked up with the Jamaican women who paid them for the drugs. When police arrested the Norwegians they found them with more than US$40,000 (more than J$4.5 Million) plus receipts for remittance transfers. The Jamaican women were arrested after the drugs was found in a rental car they were operating, after they had linked up with the ship’s crew members and picked up the drugs at a hotel. According to a report by Elizabeth Behram, staff reported at the Tampa Tribune, Florida, and quoting Associated Press sources, the five Norwegian crew members were Jason Carmichael, Arkine John, Alfred Ince, TeffanDelice and Johnson Cherubin. According to the newspaper report, three of them were followed by law officers to Hooters restaurant in Channelside, where they met up with the two Jamaican women who arrived in a rental car. The women drove the men to Residence Inn on Boy Scout Boulevard, according to the federal affidavit. Everyone went inside, and then Semarie Paul and Simone Walters dropped the crew members off at the Port, for them to return to their ship.
Cops then nabbed the ship crew.
Paul and Walters then returned to the hotel and then emerged with their luggage.
According to the newspaper, “Walters and Paul left the hotel and were pulled over by a Pasco County Sheriff’s sergeant for a traffic infraction. The women appeared nervous, a K-9 deputy arrived at the scene, and the dog found four packages of cocaine in the car, according to the affidavit.”
The crew members of the Norwegian Sun told police they had smuggled the drugs in their spandex from Honduras and had a contact in Florida. The Jamaican women paid them US$2,000 (J$230,000) per package for the drugs. Up to last week, The Tribune reported, “Paul, Walters and the five crew members — who are listed as galley workers in jail records — remain in federal custody.”
