Smuggler of aliens back at it, police say
Convicted captain arrested
A Bahamian boat captain previously convicted of smuggling people into the United Stateswas captured while bringing seven people ashore at a Fort Lauderdale marina, Homeland Security Investigations said in a court document.
Raymond Abdul Pritchard agreed to bring the groupto theU.S. to erase a relative’s $17,000 debt to drug traffickers in the Bahamas, a federal criminal complaint said.
After sunrise Tuesday, a Fort Lauderdale marine police officer noticed a 27-foot Pursuit fishing boat coming from the ocean and riding unusually low in the Intra coastal Water way as it passed beneath the 17th Street Causeway bridge.
The captain appeared to be having trouble
steering the vessel and when the officer tried to get it to pull over, it sped into The Sails Marina, according to a criminal complaint.
Eight people who had been aboard ran away. Police caught five of them. Pritchard and another person fromthe boat were taken to the hospital for treatment of minor injuries before they joined the others in custody at a U.S. Border Patrol station in Dania Beach.
Three of the smuggled party have not been found, the complaint said. Documents name only Pritchard; Andy Jackson Mitchell; Devon Rankin and Kelvin Everett Es teen; their ages and hometowns were not listed.
Their arrival in Fort Lauderdale brought a massive law enforcement response to the marina, at 2150 SE 17th St. Causeway and to the Hyatt Regency Pier Sixty-Six resort that is just north, across the causeway.
Two helicopters joined the search as K-9 officers, Fort Lauderdale police officers, ambulances from the city’s fire department, and heavily armed personnel from U.S. Custom sand Border Protection and the U.S. Border Patrol used the east side of the hotel property as a base of operations.
In October 2015, Pritchard was removed from the U.S. back to the Bahamas after he was convicted in federal court in South Florida of alien smuggling.
He currently faces charges of bringing in and harboring aliens and illegal re-entry after removal. A lawyer for Pritchard could not be identified.