Jose Jimenez, 47, Marcelino Diogenes, 46, and Franklin Abbott, 32, fidgeted in their jumpsuits and seats lining the wall of District Courtroom 2, while a Spanish interpreter translated.

The defendants live on St. Maarten and were planning to bring the drugs into the US Virgin Islands territory. The hearing confirmed the federal charges the defendants face: intentional possession of narcotics aboard a vessel in U.S. waters and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.

The paper reported that federal agents intercepted an unlit 26-foot fishing boat speeding through the darkness carrying 710 pounds of cocaine worth more than $8 million between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. last Saturday.

Related stories from the last 48 hours:

Dominican drug trafficker sentenced in union-related cocaine smuggling operation

NEW YORK - Omar Adonis Guzman-Martinez, a citizen of the Dominican Republic, was sentenced today to over 16 years in prison for his participation in a drug trafficking operation that used corrupt longshoremen to smuggle more than 150 kilograms of cocaine from Ecuador into the United States, through New York Harbor. 

In late August 2010, Guzman-Martinez was expelled from Venezuela and transported to the United States.  He pled guilty in May 2011 to one count of conspiring to distribute narcotics and one count of witness tampering. 

Source: empirestatenews.net

Must watch video!! Leonel and his connections to the drug lords