Ex-Islands Leader Gets 8-Year Term for Drug Smuggling Plot
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MIAMI — Norman Saunders, the former chief minister of the Turks and Caicos Islands who was convicted in a plot to use the islands as a drug-smuggling way station to the United States, was sentenced Friday to eight years in prison.
Saunders, 41, was convicted July 19 of conspiracy to travel and actual travel in furtherance of a crime, but was acquitted of actual drug importation charges.
Stafford Missick, 47, Saunders’ minister of commerce and development, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after his conviction on a cocaine-importation charge.
The two men also were fined $50,000.
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