THE nine men who were held in a ganja bust in Portland on January 15 were yesterday offered $5 million bail each when they appeared in the Port Antonio Resident Magistrate’s Court.

They are booked to reappear in court on Tuesday, March 5.

Resident Magistrate Bertram Morrison offered the men bail with one, two or three sureties and ordered them to surrender all travel documents, be fingerprinted and report to the nearest police station in their community between the hours of 9:00 am and 9:00 pm. on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Three of the men — Keith Huslin, 56, of Dolphin Bay, Portland; David Ormsby, 38, of Grosvenor Terrace, Kingston and Ricardo Chin Yee, 33, a mechanic of 2 Wayne Close in Kingston — took up the bail offer yesterday.

The others are: Leonard Binns, 29, of Junction St Elizabeth; Ian Staple, 33, also of Junction; Ashman Dixon, 41 fisherman of Brown’s Town, St Ann; Mark Lynch, 41, farmer of Drapers, Portland; and Khani Coleman, 30, a taxi driver of Paradise, Montego Bay.

The nine men were held by the narcotics police in Portland after they were allegedly caught loading 828 kilogrammes of ganja onto a boat, the Blue Dolphin.

The court was told that the narcotics police carried out the operation on Tuesday, January 15 between the hours of 6:30 pm and 9:30 pm at premises occupied by Huslin in Dolphin Bay, Portland.

Prosecutors said packets of what appeared to be ganja wrapped in tape were observed being loaded onto a pick-up truck and removed to the Dolphin Bay beach and loaded onto the boat.

The value of the ganja was put at $25 million.