Trini crime boss jailed in U.S. for gun smuggling conspiracy

Shem Wayne Alexan­der, a 36-year-old na­tion­al of Trinidad and To­ba­go who was ex­tra­dit­ed from Ja­maica, has been sen­tenced to four years and nine months in a Unit­ed States fed­er­al prison for con­spir­ing to smug­gle more than 200 firearms from the U.S. to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The sen­tence was im­posed by U.S. Dis­trict Judge John L. Badala­men­ti in the Mid­dle Dis­trict of Flori­da. The court al­so or­dered Alexan­der to for­feit firearms seized dur­ing the of­fence. He had pre­vi­ous­ly plead­ed guilty.

Ac­cord­ing to the Unit­ed States De­part­ment of Jus­tice, be­tween April 2019 and April 2022, Alexan­der and his co-con­spir­a­tors un­law­ful­ly ex­port­ed firearms, firearm com­po­nents, in­clud­ing up­per and low­er re­ceivers and gun parts kits, and re­lat­ed items from Flori­da to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In to­tal, more than 200 firearms were smug­gled from the Unit­ed States in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

On April 21, 2021, of­fi­cers from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port seized a ship­ment con­tain­ing two punch­ing bags.

The ship­ment had been sent from the Unit­ed States to Trinidad and To­ba­go and de­scribed as “house­hold items”. Au­thor­i­ties lat­er dis­cov­ered that the punch­ing bags con­cealed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 11 9mm pis­tols; two .38 cal­i­bre re­volvers; a 12-gauge se­mi-au­to­mat­ic shot­gun; three AR-15 bar­rel fore­grips; 19 low­er pis­tol grip as­sem­blies; 11 fore­arm bolt as­sem­blies; three AR-15-style bar­rels with fore­arm grips; 32 AR-15 mag­a­zines; one AR-15 drum mag­a­zine; 470 rounds of AR-15 am­mu­ni­tion; 34 9mm mag­a­zines; three 9mm drum mag­a­zines; 284 9mm rounds; 15 .38 cal­i­bre rounds; 36 shot­gun shells; six mag­a­zine cou­plers; and two shot­gun chokes.

The De­part­ment of Jus­tice said Alexan­der and his co-con­spir­a­tors arranged the ship­ment with­out pro­vid­ing writ­ten no­tice to the ship­per about its true con­tents.

The case was in­ves­ti­gat­ed by U.S. Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms En­force­ment Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty In­ves­ti­ga­tions, in­clud­ing its At­taché Caribbean of­fice, and the Bu­reau of Al­co­hol, To­bac­co, Firearms and Ex­plo­sives.

Au­thor­i­ties said the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice—in­clud­ing its Transna­tion­al Or­ga­nized Crime Unit and Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit—pro­vid­ed as­sis­tance along with U.S. Cit­i­zen­ship and Im­mi­gra­tion Ser­vices, the Flori­da De­part­ment of Law En­force­ment, U.S. Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion and the De­part­ment of Com­merce’s Of­fice of Ex­port En­force­ment.

The De­part­ment of Jus­tice’s Of­fice of In­ter­na­tion­al Af­fairs, the Ja­maica Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and the Ja­maica Con­stab­u­lary Force al­so sup­port­ed Alexan­der’s ex­tra­di­tion.

As­sis­tant U.S. At­tor­ney Adam W. Mc­Call pros­e­cut­ed the case in the Mid­dle Dis­trict of Flori­da.