A Trinidadian man, dubbed the leader of a transnational criminal organisation, who was arrested in Jamaica and extradited to the United States (US) in 2024, has been sentenced by a US district judge for conspiracy to smuggle firearms from the United States to Trinidad and Tobago.

Shem Wayne Alexander, 36, of Port of Spain, Trinidad, pleaded guilty, and will serve four years and nine months in federal prison. The court also ordered Alexander to forfeit firearms seized during the offence.

According to the plea agreement and court records, between April 2019 and April 2022, Alexander and his co-conspirators unlawfully exported firearms, firearms components 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.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) shared in a statement Tuesday that on April 21, 2021, members of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service and Customs and Excise Division at Piarco International Airport seized a shipment containing two punching bags.

Alexander and his co-conspirators had sent the shipment from the United States to Trinidad and Tobago describing the contents as “household items”, the DoJ said. But concealed within the two punching bags were approximately eleven 9mm pistols, two .38 calibre special 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, thirty-four 9mm magazines, three 9mm drum magazines, two hundred and eighty-four 9mm rounds, fifteen .38 calibre rounds, 36 shells, six magazine couplers, and two shotgun chokes. Alexander and his co-conspirators reportedly arranged this shipment without written notice to the shipper as to the contents of the shipment.

The case was investigated by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), including HSI’s Attaché Caribbean, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, with assistance provided by the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (Transnational Organised Crime Unit and Special Investigations Unit), US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, US 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 provided critical support in the extradition, the DoJ said.

The case is part of the US’s Organised Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force programme, which targets the most serious transnational criminal organisations.

Concealed firearms, firearms components, and ammunition retrieved from the punching bags.Photo: US Department of Justice