Fifty-five Jamaicans are slated to be deported to Jamaica from the United States (US) on February 27, but one prominent name is not among them.
Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke will not be among those returned to Jamaica despite reports circulating on social media, a security official at the Jamaican Embassy in Washington DC told The Gleaner yesterday.
“We have received several calls about Coke being returned on February 27, but there is no truth to those rumours,” said the security official at the embassy.
Coke is slated to be released from a US prison in 2029 and the security official at the embassy said that no word has come from the US administration about an early release for him.
Coke, who has been described as a Jamaican drug lord and head of the Shower Posse, was sentenced to 23 years in a US prison after being extradited to the US in 2010 and found guilty in a New York Court on charges brought by the US Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.
The security official at the embassy said the number of Jamaicans being returned is in keeping with the numbers seen most months and there has been no significant increase in the numbers despite the heightened crackdown on undocumented migrants in the US by the Donald Trump administration.
The security official also told The Gleaner that there has not been a significant increase in the number of Jamaicans, who are out of status in the US, calling and seeking to return home.
He said several who are out of status and who called the embassy were seeking travel documents so they could return to the island.
“There has been no significant increase in calls recently from those seeking to self-deport,” he told The Gleaner.
