A Point Fortin man who was caught by the po­lice trans­port­ing 2.1 kilo­grammes of mar­i­jua­na has been jailed for 18 months.

John­ny Jerome,38, of Chatham, plead­ed guilty be­fore Point Fortin Mag­is­trate Ali­cia Chankar to pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing.

Dur­ing his court ap­pear­ance, Jerome told the mag­is­trate that his house burnt down some time ago and he was just try­ing some­thing.

He was ar­rest­ed on Mon­day by PC Bowen who was in the com­pa­ny of PC Loubon, PC Du­ri­ty and PC Periera of the South West­ern Di­vi­sion Di­vi­sion Task Force. Pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Jessie Jit­mans­ingh said the of­fi­cers were on mo­bile pa­trol along South­ern Cen­tral Road, Point Fortin when they saw a speed­ing white sil­ver cab Maz­da pick up.

The po­lice of­fi­cers stopped the ve­hi­cle which was be­ing dri­ven by Jerome. Up­on search­ing the van, PC Bowen found four brown rec­tan­gu­lar pack­ets con­tain­ing the mar­i­jua­na be­hind the dri­ver’s seat.

The mar­i­jua­na had a street val­ue of $21,000.

Jerome had a pend­ing mat­ter for firearm pos­ses­sion but no con­vic­tions.