A 35-year-old Aishalton farmer was on Wednesday sentenced to three years in jail and fined $30,000 for trafficking cannabis.

Fernando Latia, a father of three, appeared before City Magistrate Judy Latchman and confessed that on August 17, 2017 at Aishalton Village, South Rupununi, he had 96 grams of cannabis for the purpose of trafficking.
The unrepresented man told the court: “If it wasn’t for my grandmother’s sick daughter, I won’t have had the thing.”
According to the facts, on the day in question at about 04:30hrs, the police, acting on information, went to the accused’s Aishalton home, where they found him standing outside.
Though a search of his person didn’t yield anything, the police became suspicious upon seeing a multicoloured bag nestled between the roots of an orange tree in the man’s yard.
A search of the bag in Latia’s presence unearthed the drugs. On realising that the game was up, he reportedly told the ranks:
“The weed is my own; I just doing a fine hustle.”