News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 25, 2011
Contact: David Melenkevitz, PIO
Number: 954-660-4602

Thirteen Indicted for Airdropping Multi-Hundred Kilogram Quantities of Cocaine in the Caribbean Sea and for Money Laundering Offenses

AUG 25 -- MIAMI -- Mark R. Trouville, Special Agent in Charge, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Miami Field Division, and Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, announce the unsealing of a July 15, 2011 indictment against 13 individuals on charges that they engaged in a narcotics trafficking conspiracy spanning from Colombia and Venezuela to the British Virgin Islands and the United States. Charged in the 19-count indictment are Roberto Mendez-Hurtado, 51, of Colombia, Alvaro Ricardo Nino-Bonilla, 40, of Colombia, Roberto Harrigan, 31, of the British Virgin Islands, Samuel Javier, 57, of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Jorge Ivan Riveros, 38, of Colombia, Luis Fernando Velasquez-Ramirez, 34, of Miami, Florida, Narciso Rondon-Mejia, 48, of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Severo Confessor, 70, of New York, New York, Earl DelVille Hodge, 51, of the British Virgin Islands, Juan Figueroa-Valdez, 38, of the British Virgin Islands, Carlston Beazer, 33, of the British Virgin Islands, Chad Skelton, 37, of the British Virgin Islands, and Humberto Gallego, 44, of Queens, New York.

Nine defendants have been arrested, and four remain at large. Five were arrested in Tortola, British Virgin Islands, early this morning, including Earl Delville Hodge, a/k/a “Bob Hodge,â€