GOVERNMENT tax investigators confirmed yesterday that they seized more than $2.5-million worth of furnishings from the swanky Norbrook Road townhouse home of Anton Johnson, who the police allege is a drug kingpin and the pilot of a Piper Navajo aircraft that was involved in a dramatic cocaine smuggling operation at the Tinson Pen aerodrome a year ago.

The raid took place last Thursday when agents of the finance ministry’s Financial Investigation Division (FID) and the narcotics police went to Johnson’s home at Glen Abbey Court, 13A Norbrook Road to collect on a tax claim of more than $100 million.

“I can confirm the raid and seizure,” head of the FID, Mike Surridge told the Observer. “I can tell you that it was done under the Tax Collection Act, and in conjunction with the narcotics police.”

“The warrant authorised the bailiff to distrain and dispose of goods and chattels, owned by, or in possession of a person who fails to comply with his or her tax obligation,” Surridge said.

Surridge declined to disclose the sum for which Johnson, a Bahamian, was assessed, but other officials close to the case said that Inland Revenue Department demanded $129 million from Johnson.

The agency made the assessment, informed sources said, after Johnson failed to respond to the Commissioner of Inland Revenue about his income and wealth relative to his tax returns.

Johnson was among nine persons, including two policemen, allegedly involved in the Tinson Pen incident on July 13 last year, when narcotics police tried to intercept a plane that they claimed was allegedly being loaded with cocaine.

In what critics suggested was a bungled operation by the police, shots were exchanged between the police and the alleged drug smugglers. The plane was punctured but was able to take off. However, all the men involved in its loading managed to escape.

But five hours later the plane returned to Tinson Pen and it was later seized by the police. Johnson was arrested three days later at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Montego Bay.

In a decision in January that angered the head of the narcotics police, Carl Williams, a Kingston magistrate freed all the alleged cocaine smugglers on technicalities.

Prosecutors did not properly outline the case before serving indictments against them and their case was also undermined by the lack of a forensic certificate that a banned substance was being trafficked.

Neither were there statements from independent persons that a drug operation was being carried out, defence lawyers argued.

“This is a victory for the drug-trafficking community,” Williams told the Observer after the verdict.

Johnson, however, still has a part-heard case for allegedly flying a plane without the requisite airworthiness certificate.

But the authorities have apparently decided to move after Johnson on the tax front – a development that could well mushroom in the face of the government’s declared war on alleged drug traffickers.

In recent months, the police have arrested several persons who the authorities say are leading drug dealers, including one who was on US President George W Bush’s list of drug kingpins.

However, the authorities have not specifically said that

Johnson’s tax assessment was based on his alleged drug wealth, although Surridge’s confirmation of last week’s raid seems to make that connection.

“In Johnson’s case, the assessment was served, and he had 30 days to respond,” Surridge said. “His failure to do so led to tax officials securing a distress warrant which was executed by a bailiff on July 22.”

According to Observer sources, the bailiffs who turned up at Johnson’s home took everything, including cooking utensils and his clothes iron.

He begged that they leave a mattress on which he could sleep.

Tom Tavares-Finson, the lawyer who represented Johnson in the drug case, said he has advised his client to seek counsel who could adequately represent him in the tax case. Tax law was outside his area of expertise, Tavares-Finson said.

“When he (Johnson) called me and told me that he had received this tax assessment notification, he thought it was a joke, so he did not respond to it,” Tavares-Finson said.

According to the lawyer, Johnson is in the process of seeking counsel on the matter.

Tavares-Finson, however, questioned the legality of the search, specifically the involvement of the narcotics police.

“I don’t know the law on this matter, but it seems to me that the narcotics police had no right to be involved in a matter which is said to be a tax assessment,” he said.