Suriname leader’s son’s ‘right hand’ gets prison in U.S. drug case

NEW YORK, (Reuters) A Surinamese man convicted of acting as the “right-hand man” to the son of the country’s president during a scheme to send large amounts of cocaine to the United States was sentenced yesterday to 11-1/4 years in a U.S. prison.

Edmund Muntslag, who was arrested after a U.S. sting operation targeting Dino Bouterse, Suriname President Desi Bouterse’s son, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan, prosecutors said.

He faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life after a federal jury found Muntslag, 33, guilty in March of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States.