Se­cu­ri­ty has been beefed up at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, Arou­ca, af­ter re­ports sur­faced that emis­saries of a Latin Amer­i­can drug car­tel were plan­ning the es­cape of al­leged drug traf­fick­er Ed­mund Quin­cy Muntslag.Muntslag, 29, of Suri­name, is ac­cused of in­volve­ment in a drug traf­fick­ing op­er­a­tion in the Unit­ed States with al­leged co-ac­cused Di­no De­lano Bouterse, the son of Suri­name Pres­i­dent De­si Bouterse.

Muntslag is charged with con­spir­ing to im­port co­caine in­to the US. The charge car­ries a max­i­mum sen­tence of life in prison.A se­nior po­lice source said yes­ter­day that since Muntslag was ar­rest­ed in T&T a week ago, se­cu­ri­ty has been beefed up be­cause of height­ened con­cerns that the drug car­tels could in­fil­trate lo­cal pris­ons.Pris­ons of­fi­cers say they sus­pect there is a plot for Muntslag's es­cape.

"Se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices are on high alert for any at­tempt­ed prison break, as po­lice of­fi­cers have al­leged­ly been ap­proached by var­i­ous emis­saries to as­sist in fa­cil­i­tat­ing the es­cape," a se­nior source said yes­ter­day."The US au­thor­i­ties are tak­ing no chances as drug lords have man­aged to es­cape from po­lice cus­tody be­fore."Muntslag ap­peared in a lo­cal court on Au­gust 30 un­rep­re­sent­ed and asked for a trans­la­tor. The Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty Unit in the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of­fered to as­sist.

Muntslag's moth­er has re­port­ed­ly flown in to vis­it him, but pris­ons of­fi­cials are keep­ing a close watch as he is be­ing treat­ed as max­i­mum se­cu­ri­ty high-risk pris­on­er.He was ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cials as­signed to Or­gan­ised Crime Nar­cotics and Firearm Bu­reau (OC­NFB) and the US Drug En­force­ment Agency when he land­ed in Trinidad on Au­gust 29 in tran­sit to an­oth­er coun­try, pre­sum­ably Latin Amer­i­ca.

Muntslag is charged with con­spir­a­cy to im­port and dis­trib­ute more than five kilo­grammes of co­caine in­to the Unit­ed States. The in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the US au­thor­i­ties has been the sub­ject of in­ter­na­tion­al press re­ports be­cause of his close links with Bouterse's son."This ar­rest rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant break­through in an in­ter­na­tion­al in­ves­ti­ga­tion that fo­cused on a ma­jor car­tel re­spon­si­ble for drug traf­fick­ing be­tween South Amer­i­ca and the Unit­ed States," the source said.

AG mum on de­tails

Con­tact­ed on his cell­phone yes­ter­day, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan said he could not di­vulge de­tails of Muntslag's ar­rest."The work of the Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty is ex­treme­ly sen­si­tive and con­fi­den­tial. I can con­firm that he has been ar­rest­ed and de­tained but I am not at lib­er­ty to dis­close any­thing fur­ther in re­la­tion to this mat­ter," Ram­lo­gan said.Asked if Muntslag will be ex­tra­dit­ed to the US, Ram­lo­gan said he could not dis­cuss that is­sue.

A re­port from the US At­tor­ney's of­fice in the South­ern Dis­trict of New York al­so con­firmed that Muntslag was ar­rest­ed in Trinidad in late Au­gust. How­ev­er, lo­cal au­thor­i­ties ini­tial­ly said they had no in­for­ma­tion on Muntslag's ar­rest.Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, a press of­fi­cer from the US At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's de­part­ment said: "We do not know if there is any fur­ther in­for­ma­tion ex­cept what was re­leased in the state­ment, but we will check and send you an e-mail."

Head of In­ter­pol in T&T, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams, al­so de­nied knowl­edge of Muntslag's ar­rest yes­ter­day."I don't know any­thing about it. If there is a per­son want­ed by the US po­lice, they will com­mu­ni­cate with us," Williams told the T&T Guardian."There are of­fi­cial chan­nels to do this and the US au­thor­i­ties have not com­mu­ni­cat­ed with us. Right now I don't know the cir­cum­stances of his ar­rest or where he was ar­rest­ed. I have no knowl­edge of this at all."

Asked whether he will be in­ves­ti­gat­ing Muntslag's where­abouts, Williams said no. "If the US wants to get some­one ex­tra­dit­ed, they will call us."Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard al­so said he did not know any­thing about Muntslag's ar­rest or where­abouts."This is news to me," he said in a text mes­sage.

Told that in­ter­na­tion­al press re­ports from Reuters, the Latin Amer­i­can Tri­bune and the As­so­ci­at­ed Press had re­port­ed Muntslag's ar­rest, Gas­pard said he would check, al­though he sus­pect­ed that the in­for­ma­tion might be con­fi­den­tial.A mes­sage was sent to the US DEA's Spe­cial-Agent-in-Charge of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Di­vi­sion, Derek Matz, who as­sist­ed in the case, but no re­sponse was re­ceived up to last night.

Alexan­der McLaren, Pub­lic Af­fairs Of­fi­cer at the US Em­bassy, al­so said yes­ter­day he would make some in­quiries in­to the mat­ter. Ef­forts to con­tact Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Mar­tin Mar­tinez were al­so un­suc­cess­ful, as calls to his cell­phone went unan­swered.

US drug link

A re­port quot­ed by the Latin Amer­i­can Tri­bune stat­ed that on Ju­ly 27, Bouterse, 40, of Para­mari­bo, Suri­name, con­spired to im­port co­caine in­to the US. Bouterse was ar­raigned in a Man­hat­tan fed­er­al court be­fore US Mag­is­trate Judge James C Fran­cis IV last Fri­day. He was charged with con­spir­a­cy to im­port co­caine and car­ry­ing a firearm or de­struc­tive de­vice dur­ing and in re­la­tion to a drug-traf­fick­ing crime.

In the in­dict­ment, it was stat­ed that as part of this con­spir­a­cy, Bouterse caused a suit­case con­tain­ing ten kilo­grammes of co­caine to be trans­port­ed out of Suri­name aboard a com­mer­cial flight, and in the course of en­gag­ing in the drug trans­ac­tion, pos­sessed an an­ti-tank weapon.Bouterse's fa­ther, D�si Bouterse, is a for­mer army of­fi­cer and mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor who was elect­ed to of­fice in 2010.

The pros­e­cu­tion is be­ing han­dled by the Ter­ror­ism and In­ter­na­tion­al Nar­cotics Unit. As­sis­tant US at­tor­neys Ed­ward Y Kim, Michael D Lockard, and Adam Fee are in charge of the pros­e­cu­tion.

GUARDIAN RE­PORTERS