Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

Tampa, Florida – Senior U.S. District Judge Susan Bucklew has sentenced Jermaine Rhoomes (46, St. Petersburg) to four years and nine months in federal prison for trafficking firearms, ammunition, and gun parts to Jamaica, in violation of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. The sentence imposed was the maximum recommended by the United States Sentencing Guidelines.

Rhoomes had pleaded guilty on October 1, 2019.

According to court documents, in March 2016, Rhoomes used an alias and false address to smuggle to Jamaica a pistol, an AR15-style assault rifle, and multiple ammunition magazines, in shipments that he had declared as containing audio equipment. In July 2017, Rhoomes used a fake name and address to send a 50-gallon barrel to Jamaica that he declared as “food.” Jamaican law enforcement officers intercepted the barrel and discovered that it actually contained two AK47-style assault rifles, five AR15-style assault rifles, eight pistols, 3,315 rounds of assorted ammunition, 38 gun magazines, and a bulletproof vest. After tracing that shipment back to Rhoomes, law enforcement searched Rhoomes’s apartment in St. Petersburg and found seven partially completed assault-style rifles, two shotguns, 23 gun magazines, and 5,949 rounds of assorted ammunition, all of which Rhoomes intended to illegally export to Jamaica.

Representatives from the Jamaican government, including Queen’s Counsel Paula Llewellyn, Jamaica’s Director of Public Prosecutions, traveled to the United States to attend Rhoomes’s sentencing hearing.

“The unique international investigative authorities of HSI helped disrupt this transnational criminal organization,” said Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations Tampa Assistant Special Agent in Charge Michael Cochran. “Thanks to the hard work of our HSI special agents and our partners at Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, the St. Petersburg Police Department, the U.S. Postal Inspector, the HSI Attaché office in Jamaica and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, our communities are safer today.”

This case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Removal Operations, the St. Petersburg Police Department, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Assistant United States Attorney Daniel George and Trial Attorney Will Mackie of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section prosecuted the case.

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