NATIONAL footballer Manasseh `Ziggy’ Primo was held in the USA last week for allegedly trying to smuggle drugs into that country. Primo, a striker with Alpha United Football Club, was nabbed at the JFK International Airport on June 11. It has been alleged that Primo tried to smuggle cocaine into the USA in pellets he had swallowed. The stocky forward appeared before Magistrate Judge Vera M. Scanlon and was remanded to prison. Primo is not the first sports figure from Guyana to be nabbed in the USA for drug-trafficking.
Last year May weightlifter Colin `Mr Clean’ Chesney was busted in the USA for cocaine. Chesney arrived in the U.S on Saturday May 24, 2014 on a Caribbean Airlines flight from Guyana with over 50 cocaine-filled pellets in his stomach.
Several years ago national football goalkeeper Marlon Hendricks was busted in Barbados and died after pellets burst in his stomach.
Last October, Primo, along with five other club members was suspended for six months by Alpha United for indiscipline. Primo, Gregory `Jackie Chan’ Richardson and Anthony `Natural’ Benfield were found guilty of abandoning the team just before its final match of the CONCACAF Champions League in Portland, Oregon in September 2014.
The three players defied instructions given by coach Wayne `Wiggy’ Dover, left the hotel hours before the game against Portland Timbers, to go shopping. They could not be found when the team left for the venue of the match but surfaced at the match venue long after the team arrived. Their absence forced Dover to commence the game without them.