NEW YORK, Aug. 31 (UPI) -- The son of a South American president has been charged with attempting to bring cocaine, a rocket launcher and guns into the United States, prosecutors say.
Dino Bouterse, 40, has pleaded not guilty to the charges, the New York Post reported Saturday.
His father, President Desi Bouterse of Suriname, was convicted in absentia in 1999 by a Dutch court of smuggling more than 1,000 pounds of cocaine into The Netherlands. He never served any prison time.
Dino Bouterse said he attempted to smuggle a light anti-tank weapon, pistols and 22 pounds of cocaine into the United States "and brandished a destructive weapon during the act," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in releasing the indictment.
Dino Bouterse was arrested Thursday in Panama after sending a drug-filled suitcase from Suriname to the Caribbean on a commercial flight.
The indictment said Bouterse and an associate, Edmund Quincy Muntslag, 29, distributed the drug with the intention it "would be imported into the United States," the New York Daily News reported.
Muntslag was arrested in Trinidad and Tobago. He is charged with trafficking.
Prosecutors in Suriname charged Dino Bouterse in 2002 with stealing 50 guns from Suriname's intelligence service. Charges were dropped after police said there was insufficient evidence to bring him to trial.
He was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2005 after being convicted of running a ring that trafficked in cocaine, illegal weapons and stolen luxury cars.
