The US Department of Justice today announced the unsealing of a new indictment against Dino Bouterse, the son of Suriname’s president. The new charges are for “attempting to provide material support and resources to Hezbollah, a designated terrorist organization,” a DOJ press release stated.
The DOJ had announced the arrest of Bouterse and Edmund Quincy Muntslag on Aug. 30. At the time, the two men were facing charges for conspiring “to import cocaine into the United States,” the DOJ said. Bouterse was also facing a second charge for allegedly “carrying a firearm or destructive device during and in relation to a drug-trafficking crime.”
According to today’s unsealed indictment, Bouterse “held himself out as Commander of that country’s Counter-Terrorism Unit.” Prior to his arrest in August 2013, Bouterse “worked to give Hezbollah access to Suriname,” the indictment stated.
Bouterse, the indictment alleged, agreed “to allow large numbers of Hezbollah operatives to use Suriname as a permanent base, for among other thing, attacks on American targets.” In addition, Bouterse purportedly “supplied a false Surinamese passport for the purpose of making clandestine travel easier.”
Furthermore, he began “to determine which heavy weapons might be provided to Hezbollah” and “how Hezbollah operatives, supplied with a Surinamese cover story, might enter the United States.”
In return, Bouterse, known for his extensive involvement in illicit activities, expected to receive a “multi-million dollar pay-off.”
A website, now defunct, that was purportedly linked to Bouterse had the tag-line: Passion for Making Life Better in Suriname.
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2 Comments
Like father like son, his father Desi Bouterse was also involved in criminal activity trafficking cocaine to Europe.
Hmm, Casus belli for an intervention into Suriname?
Suriname has the highest percentage of muslims in the americas, so it would make sense that militant groups seeking rear bases in the Americas would want a presence there, if for recruiting purposes alone though i had been under the impression that most muslims in Suriname and Guyana are Sunni so i cant imagine that any significant portion of the population there supports Hezbollah…