Fugitive extradited to US 12 years after skipping court

A Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­al has been ex­tra­dit­ed to the Unit­ed States to face armed rob­bery and con­spir­a­cy charges, more than a decade af­ter fail­ing to ap­pear in court.

Ker­von Noel was ex­tra­dit­ed on April 21, 12 years af­ter a war­rant was is­sued for his ar­rest in Mary­land in No­vem­ber 2014. Au­thor­i­ties al­lege Noel was charged with two counts of armed rob­bery and con­spir­a­cy and was grant­ed bail but did not re­turn to court in De­cem­ber 2014, in­stead flee­ing to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

US law en­force­ment re­quest­ed his ex­tra­di­tion in Jan­u­ary 2026. Noel was ar­rest­ed in Port of Spain on Feb­ru­ary 11 at the re­quest of US au­thor­i­ties and lat­er con­sent­ed to ex­tra­di­tion. On April 13, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie signed the war­rant of re­moval.

If con­vict­ed, Noel faces a max­i­mum penal­ty of 20 years in prison for each count of armed rob­bery.

Noel was es­cort­ed to the Unit­ed States by the Unit­ed States Mar­shals Ser­vice, with sup­port from agents of the Fed­er­al Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tion and the Diplo­mat­ic Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vice.

Au­thor­i­ties from sev­er­al agen­cies in both coun­tries were in­volved in the op­er­a­tion, in­clud­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, US De­part­ment of Jus­tice, US Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion, Drug En­force­ment Ad­min­is­tra­tion, Mont­gomery Coun­ty Po­lice, and lo­cal im­mi­gra­tion and air­port of­fi­cials.

US Em­bassy Chargé d’Af­faires Dr Jenifer Nei­d­hart de Or­tiz said the ex­tra­di­tion re­flect­ed “the strength and ex­cel­lence of Amer­i­can law en­force­ment work­ing hand-in-hand with our Trinidad and To­ba­go part­ners.”

“Our col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­forts demon­strate the pow­er of pro­duc­tive diplo­ma­cy in ac­tion, con­sis­tent­ly de­liv­er­ing tan­gi­ble re­sults that pro­tect our cit­i­zens and up­hold the rule of law,” she said.

“By re­mov­ing dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals from our streets and en­sur­ing they face jus­tice, we show­case what can be achieved when two na­tions unite with shared com­mit­ment and pur­pose.”