US convict faces SA deportation for ‘crime sanctuary’ motel
Sentenced to nearly five years in prison for running a motel where sex and drug trafficking took place, Kamal Bhula may land up in South Africa. By Caryn Dolley
The sentencing of a man in the US, who could be deported to South Africa, has exposed details about how a motel was converted into “a sanctuary” for illicit activities including drug dealing.
At the end of March, Kamal Bhula (44), also known as Rocky, was sentenced to nearly five years in prison in the US. This came after he pleaded guilty in 2023 to “maintaining a drug-involved premises”.
Deportation to SA likely
According to a statement about his sentencing dated 27 March, the US Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico said Bhula faced “likely deportation to South Africa as a consequence of this conviction”. This suggests he is from this country.
Daily Maverick has established that businesses were registered previously in Gauteng under an individual with the same name and age as Bhula’s.
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement website states that that the agency’s operations target individuals who could pose threats to public safety, including “convicted criminal undocumented individuals and gang members, as well as individuals who have otherwise violated our nation’s immigration laws”. It is not clear if Bhula fits into those categories.
US court documents and statements reveal a vast web of criminality extending to him and at least two of his associates, Pragneshkumar Patel and Johnathan Craft, who also pleaded guilty.
According to a 2022 order from the New Mexico district court, Patel bought the Best Choice Inn through a company of his in September 2017 and ran operations there until March 2018. Then Bhula took over.
Women and drug debts
“Mr Bhula ran the Best Choice Inn until agents arrested him in June 2019,” the court papers said. However, the venue had not simply been operating as a motel.
According to the court order, the men had run “a sex and drug trafficking enterprise at a Best Choice Inn … from September 2017 to June 2019 under the pretence of being legitimate owners, managers and employees”.
The papers stated: “[They] allegedly recruited unstable women into prostitution by supplying them with narcotics or otherwise exploiting their weaknesses and generated drug debts which the women had to repay by engaging in prostitution.”
Human trafficking and kickbacks
Court papers from February last year relating to evidence in the case also referenced allegations that women were trafficked by way of the Best Choice Inn.
These papers said the US government had text messages that suggested women had been trafficked. One such text message, between someone referred to as
Jane Doe 1 and an accused in the matter, stated that Jane Doe 1 “doesn’t want to end up like them, basically homeless”.
The message related to “other trafficked women”. Patel, it was alleged in the court papers, had also told women that “selling their bodies … will … bring in the money”.
As for Bhula, the US Attorney’s Office statement said he had profited from a kickback scheme. This had involved “drug traffickers and users” having to pay a “visitor fee” if they “wanted to use the motel as a sanctuary for illegal activity”.
“As the manager, Bhula employed workers and rented rooms to individuals whom he knew were using and selling controlled substances at the hotel,” the statement said.
“The Best Choice Inn was described as a ‘one-stop shop’ in southeast Albuquerque for criminal activity of all sorts. Consequently, between January 2018 and December 2018, there were approximately 195 calls for service to the Best Choice Inn.”
Narcotics sold from the rooms
This greedy out-of-state hotel owner capitalised on the desperation of the most marginalised New Mexicans to line his
own pockets
Bhula’s co-accused, Patel and Craft, were sentenced to prison in February. Patel is set to spend two-and-a-half years behind bars and has to pay fines totalling $40,000 and restitution of $9,000. He was also ordered to forfeit the Best Choice Inn.
Craft was handed a nearly six-year prison term.
According to a February US Drug Enforcement Administration statement on their sentencing, Craft had lived and worked at the Best Choice Inn, and had claimed to be in charge when Bhula was away.
“Craft sold drugs from his room, allowed others to do the same, and permitted individuals to use drugs on the premises,” the statement said.
“As a manager, Craft knew that many of the people for whom a visitor fee was imposed specifically frequented the business to engage in illegal activity, including selling and using drugs.”
In February, US attorney Alexander Uballez also had strong words for Patel and said that drug traffickers targeted vulnerable individuals.
“When this greedy out-of-state hotel owner capitalised on the desperation of the most marginalised New Mexicans to line his own pockets, he lost his hotel, tens of thousands of dollars and his freedom,” Uballez said.
‘It is not safe’
US law enforcement officers shut down the Best Choice Inn when Bhula was arrested in June 2019. At the time, an article from the Albuquerque news television station and app KOAT said more than 50 officers had raided the premises “after numerous reports of recent overdose deaths, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency”.
A review of the Best Choice Inn from March 2019, posted on the Tripadvisor website, said: “This hotel is in a bad area and it is not safe! The rooms were filthy and illegal activity was happening. We did not feel safe [to] leave the car in the parking lot without fear of it being stolen. We checked out within five minutes of getting there.”