Police charged four men on 16 November 2015 over one kilogram of cocaine and 50.7 pounds (about 23 kg) of marijuana seized during a patrol in Basseterre two days earlier.[1] Rafael Chapman and Merlin Murrain Matos, both Dominican Republic nationals living on Nevis, were each charged with possession of cocaine, possession of cocaine with intent to supply and importation of cocaine.[1] Bevin Taylor, of Salt Pond Alley in Irish Town, was charged with the three cocaine counts plus possession of cannabis and possession of cannabis with intent to supply.[1] Dennial Rouse was charged with possession of cannabis and possession of cannabis with intent to supply.[1]

At about 3 p.m. on 14 November, officers of the Special Services Unit and the Anti-Narcotics Unit on a routine patrol along the Bay Road in Irish Town watched a blue and white boat named Pearla Negra approach close to the shoreline near the Gardens Housing Project.[1] Officers said a man alleged to be Taylor took an orange and white bucket thrown to him from the vessel, ran towards the Gardens playfield and was caught, and that one kilogram of cocaine with a street value of EC$89,100 was found in the bucket.[1] The boat headed out to sea but a St Kitts and Nevis Coast Guard vessel intercepted it and took Chapman and Matos into custody.[1] A search warrant executed at Taylor’s Salt Pond Alley home found 50.7 pounds of marijuana with a street value of EC$380,250, and he and Rouse, who was present, were taken into custody.[1] The outlet’s headline total of EC$469K is the sum of the two police street-value estimates for the cocaine and the marijuana.[2]

Assistant Commissioner of Police Ian Queeley, quoted in the police release, called the case an example of the collaboration the force’s Six-Point Plan intended and said the Coast Guard had been called on to intercept a small craft.[2] The same release noted a significant drug seizure in Nevis the previous day, 13 November.[2]