More than five years after the largest drug bust in Virgin Islands history, three men are standing trial in connection with the 2,353 kilograms of cocaine seized from a property in Balsam Ghut on Nov. 6, 2020.
Worth an estimated $250 million, the drug haul made international headlines and was cited by then-governor Gus Jaspert as one of the reasons for launching the Commission of Inquiry probe about two months later.
Now facing the Magistrates’ Court are Darren Davis, a long-time police officer who is interdicted from duty pending the trial’s conclusion; his brother Leston Davis; and Emile Jimenez, who was a police officer at the time of the seizure but is no longer on the force, police said.
As the trial continued before Senior Magistrate Tamia Richards on Monday and Tuesday, crown prosecutor Tracy Vidale introduced evidence designed to link the trio to the contraband found on the property even though no one was arrested at the scene.
But defence attorneys for the three men — all of whom have maintained their innocence — used cross-examination to try to poke holes in the crown’s case and raise questions about prosecutors’ version of events.
The evidence shown to the court this week included 139 kilograms of cocaine that police said were retained when the rest of the confiscated drugs were shipped away in January 2021 to be incinerated elsewhere.
Officers’ testimony
On Monday morning, VI police officer Richard Francis took the stand as a crown witness in the case, which has been delayed repeatedly since it first came before the court in 2022.
During his testimony, Mr. Francis described the day of the historic raid.
While on patrol in the East End area, he said, he and another officer with him — Ronald Augustine, according to later testimony — observed Mr. Jimenez driving a black Audi with Leston Davis in the passenger seat.
The officers also saw the two men visit the compound in Balsam Ghut sometime between noon and 3 p.m. that day, Mr. Francis testified.
Sometime after that, Mr. Francis said, a slow-moving “convoy” of vehicles aroused his suspicion and prompted the two officers to return to an observation point overlooking the Balsam Ghut property.
At around 4 or 5 p.m., he testified, a white three-yard truck followed by a red Ford jeep arrived at the site. The truck reversed in front of a brown shipping container, and the jeep parked next to it, according to Mr. Francis.
Then, he said, Darren Davis got out of the driver’s side of the truck and Leston Davis and another person exited the jeep before all three men entered the container.
Though Mr. Francis did not see the men for some time after that, he did hear loud metal crashing sounds, he said.
According to Tuesday testimony from Mr. Augustine, who echoed much of Mr. Francis’ account, a search warrant was then obtained, and police returned to the Balsam Ghut property that evening to carry it out.
When they arrived, Mr. Francis told the court, several men fled into the bushes, but police did not pursue them “for safety reasons.”
Search conducted
Mr. Francis also testified about what he observed on the property when the search warrant was executed.
In tandem, prosecutors showed the court photographs of the scenes he was describing. Some of the images depicted what the officers found in the brown shipping container, including bales of suspected cocaine stacked atop one another and secured by ropes.
Another photo from inside the container showed the contents of a trash bag: an apparent assault rifle with a magazine attached to it, a nine-millimetre firearm and a nine-millimetre magazine.
More suspected cocaine was also found inside the passenger side and the back of the white three-yard truck, according to Mr. Francis.
When questioned by Ms. Vidale, Mr. Francis also identified photos of the red Ford, including several of its trunk. Under a tarp, he said, were two cardboard boxes containing bricks of suspected cocaine.
DR ‘ringleader’
Other photographs taken inside the container showed a black trash bag and a phone found on it.
The phone’s flashlight was still illuminated, Mr. Francis said. Inside the phone’s clear case, he added, police found a driver’s licence bearing the name of Ruben Reyes.
He did not elaborate on this find, but shortly after the Balsam Ghut seizure a Dominican Republic man named Ruben Reyes Barel was arrested in the United States Virgin Islands and accused of being the ringleader of a major Caribbean drug-smuggling operation responsible for the Balsam Ghut cocaine.
In April 2024, Mr. Reyes Barel was sentenced to 10 years in prison in the USVI after pleading guilty to conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with intent to distribute while on board a vessel subject to the jurisdiction of the US.
VI arrests
Mr. Francis also testified about the days following the raid, when he and accompanying officers served arrest warrants for Leston Davis at his apartment in Pockwood Pond and for Darren Davis at his apartment in Cane Garden Bay.
Police searched both premises but found no evidence connected to the case, Mr. Francis said in testimony later confirmed by Mr. Augustine.
Police also served an arrest warrant for Mr. Jimenez while he was on duty as a police officer at the West End Police Station, according to Mr. Francis.
Mr. Jimenez then accompanied police to his home in Zion Hill, where a search of the premises was conducted and no evidence was found, Mr. Francis testified.
Police interview
Also shown to the court during Mr. Francis’s testimony this week was a video of Leston Davis’s interview with police on Nov. 9, 2020, after his arrest.
In the interview, Leston Davis told Mr. Francis and another police officer that he “had no knowledge” of the search in Balsam Ghut three days earlier.
Asked about his whereabouts on the day of the bust, he replied that he went to National Health Insurance, the Social Security Board and a bar.
Retained cocaine
On Tuesday, Mr. Augustine’s testimony also included presenting the 139 kilograms of cocaine that was retained for trial.
Police officers brought the drugs to court in three plastic containers wrapped in red tape and labelled “Evidence.”
Two of the boxes, Mr. Augustine testified, contained 50 bricks of cocaine, and the third contained 39 bricks.
These drugs were retained for trial while the rest of the cocaine was destroyed under a destruction order from December 2020, according to the crown.
During his testimony, Mr. Augustine reached into one of the boxes and showed the court two evidence bags that he said contained bricks of cocaine.
Cross-examination
After the two police officers testified, both were cross-examined extensively by defence attorneys, who raised questions about their stories.
Marie Lou Creque, who represents Leston Davis, and Valston Graham, who represents Darren Davis, questioned each officer’s ability to recognise their clients.
Mr. Graham, in fact, suggested to Mr. Francis that he never even saw Darren Davis on Nov. 6, 2020.
In response, Mr. Francis disagreed.
Mr. Graham also questioned the officers’ ability to view the Balsam Ghut property clearly from their observation point, suggesting that it was dark when they saw the three-yard truck and the red Ford arrive and that obstacles such as a tree and a trailer house obscured their view.
When Mr. Graham posed this line of questioning to Mr. Augustine, the officer insisted that he could see the property and recognise people there.
Also during cross-examination, Ms. Creque suggested to Mr. Francis that there was “no forensic evidence” linking Leston Davis to the white three-yard truck found at the property.
In response, Mr. Francis said, “Okay.”
Ms. Creque also asked Mr. Augustine if anything was found that connected Leston Davis to the vehicle.
The officer replied, “Not that I know of.”
Alibi not tested
Ms. Creque also asked Mr. Francis if he ever asked NHI and SSB about Leston Davis’ claim that he visited those offices the day of the seizure.
Mr. Francis replied that he had not. In response to further questions, he also acknowledged that he never tried to verify the defendant’s alibi by reviewing the agencies’ security-camera footage or by speaking to anyone Leston Davis said he saw on the day in question.
Asked why not, Mr. Francis cited the “priorities of the investigation at the time.” Ms. Creque also pursued this line of questioning when cross-examining Mr. Augustine.
Like Mr. Francis, Mr. Augustine acknowledged that he did not go to NHI or the SSB to verify Leston Davis’ claimed movements that day — nor did he check the cameras of either office or visit the bars the defendant said he visited.
Jimenez’s attorney
Defence attorney Stephen Daniels, who represents Mr. Jimenez, quizzed Mr. Francis about his claim to have seen Mr. Jimenez driving a black Audi in East End and visiting the Balsam Ghut property.
Toward the end of his questions, the attorney summarised Mr. Francis’ allegations about Mr. Jimenez: that he visited the Balsam Ghut property in the daytime for two to three minutes — during which there was no clanging of metal — and then left. “That’s your evidence?” Mr. Daniels asked.
Mr. Francis replied, “Yes.”
Mr. Daniels also asked Mr. Augustine during cross-examination whether he observed anything “untoward” during Mr. Jimenez’s alleged visit to the property that afternoon. “
No,” replied Mr. Augustine, who previously had been called to testify in the trial in February 2023, according to court testimony.
Trial adjourned
At the end of the proceedings on Tuesday afternoon, the trial was adjourned to Feb. 20, when the court is scheduled for a site visit.
The Davis brothers, who have pleaded not guilty and maintain their innocence, each face three charges: possession of a controlled drug with intent to supply to another, possession of a prohibited firearm and carrying a firearm without a licence.
Both brothers are on bail, but attempts to learn the details of their bail conditions were not immediately successful.
Mr. Jimenez faces four charges: being concerned in the supply of a controlled drug to another, possession of a controlled drug with intent to supply to another, keeping an unlicensed firearm and possession of a prohibited firearm.
In December 2020, he pleaded not guilty to the charges and was granted bail of $375,000 with two signed sureties.
As part of Mr. Jimenez’s bail conditions set at the time, Magistrate Christilyn Benjamin ordered him to surrender all travel documents and to report to the nearest police station Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.
She also imposed a curfew on him from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.
