Bitter ordeal Jamaican man detained for 82 days for bringing honey into US
WASHINGTON, DC, United States (AFP) — A Jamaican man was detained for nearly three months in the United States after bringing in bottles of honey from the Caribbean island that customs agents mistakenly believed to be liquid methamphetamine.
Leon Haughton had visited family back in Jamaica every Christmas since taking up residence in Maryland about a decade ago, the Washington Post said yesterday, retracing his Kafkaesque entanglement in US customs and immigration bureaucracy.
Haughton’s long ordeal began December 29 at Baltimore-Washington International Airport when customs agents had a dog sniff his bags.
Inside they found three bottles duly labelled as honey that Haughton, a 45-year-old father of three, uses to sweeten his tea.
According to the charging document, the agents suspected him of transporting liquid methamphetamine, and placed him in detention.
Laboratory results from Maryland took more than two weeks to arrive: they were negative. Haughton thought that was the end of it. He was wrong.
The bottles were sent to a second laboratory in Georgia after the first was judged to be insufficiently equipped to analyse the liquids.
His lawyer had enormous difficulty contacting immigration authorities — and for good reason.
The US Government had been partially shut down as a result of a budget impasse between President Donald Trump and Democrats over his demand for funding to build a wall on the border with Mexico.
The tests in Georgia, meanwhile, finally confirmed that Haughton was indeed transporting honey. He was freed on March 21, 82 days after he returned from vacation.
Unable to work for three months and far from his children, Haughton lost his two jobs as a cleaner and construction worker.
“They messed up my life,” he told the Post, looking back on a bitter ordeal that even honey will be unable to sweeten.
Him Good i say about 1 Mill trust me
What a tragic story. So they couldn’t smell it and pour it to see that it was honey. I don’t know what liquid meth look and smell like, but I find it hard to believe that it is anything similar to honey. This man needs to lawyer up and sue somebody. Sue for emotional distress from the lengthy imprisonment, extended imprisonment after the first lab testing came back confirming it was honey. Loss of employment, financial hardship, and ptsd. Somebody needs to pay through the nose for this fckry.
Remember the football player in the States that was arrested for possession of cocaine. Turned out it was bird . He was arrested even after telling the cops that the bird took a dump on his car. The field test for narcotics is notorious for giving false readings. Unfortunate that he had to spend so much time in custody unnecessarily. I hope he takes then to the cleaners