Colombians plead guilty after caught with drugs and ammunition

The Director of Public Prosecutions is appealing the sentences handed down to three Colombian nationals who pleaded guilty to a slew of charges on June twenty-eighth.  Twenty-seven year old Alberto Bedoya, thirty-seven year old Hernan Dario O’Quendo and forty-two year old Yeney De Jesus Echavaria Manco were caught in Independence Village with fifty-three parcels of cocaine, five nine millimeter pistols and two hundred and four live rounds of assorted ammunition. They were each fined a total of twenty thousand dollars for two counts of Possession of a Controlled Drug with intent to supply and four thousand, five hundred dollars for disembarking their boat without the consent of the Immigration Authorities. Bedoya, O’Quendo and Echavaria were also sentenced to three years in prison for Kept Prohibited Ammunition, five years for Kept Unlicensed Ammunition and five years for Kept Unlicensed Firearm. They would only spend five years in prison because the sentences are to run concurrently, but the Colombians might have an extended stay in the jewel if the DPP is successful in her appeal. The bust was made at a farmhouse two miles northwest of Independence Village and the drugs were hidden inside an icebox.