Former Customs and Border Control officer Edree Fisher was jailed for nine months after she was convicted of conspiring to import more than six pounds of ganja into Cayman through Owen Roberts International Airport.[1] Justice Marlene Carter imposed 18 months but suspended half the term for personal mitigating circumstances, including that Fisher is the primary caregiver of two young children, one of whom has a serious undisclosed illness.[1] Cayman News Service, which uses the spelling Eddree Joann Fisher, says she was first arrested in May 2018, was charged three and a half years later, and then pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import ganja in June 2022, admitting she had helped a friend and steered him through customs with drugs.[2]
Fisher was arrested on 14 May 2018 and charged on 15 December 2021 on a single charge of conspiracy to import a controlled drug, ganja.[1] She first pleaded not guilty, and her trial was called off in September 2022, after she changed her plea to guilty.[1] In sentencing her on Wednesday 18 January, Carter said Fisher’s role was a leading one and that she abused her position of trust and power as a Customs and Border Control officer.[1] The judge said her intimate knowledge of the service’s procedures ensured the seamless entry of the drugs through Owen Roberts International Airport and undermined its effectiveness at detecting them.[1] Cayman News Service describes Fisher as an essential cog in a conspiracy with Corey James Miller and Kelven Claret that ran between February and April 2018, when Claret and Miller were arrested in Miami.[2]
Carter noted that if the same quantity of 6.48 pounds was smuggled in during all five attempts, Fisher would have helped to smuggle more than 30 pounds of ganja into Cayman.[1] Cayman News Service says Fisher was charged only over less than three kilos of cannabis on the final trip, and that Miller passed through the airport on five other occasions when he is believed to have been carrying ganja in washing powder boxes.[2] Fisher was arrested by CBC Assistant Director Tina Campbell, and her seized phones showed she had signed Claret’s customs declaration and exchanged messages with Miller to move the men through the airport undetected.[2]
Carter started from a sentence of three years, having noted that the maximum for conspiring to import ganja was four years, then cut 25% rather than the customary 30% because of the late guilty plea.[1] Cayman Compass reported that the remaining two years and three months were cut by three months for personal mitigation and by a further six months for the delay between her 2018 arrest and 2023 sentencing.[1] Cayman News Service said the court found the delay of almost five years from arrest to sentencing excessive and said she had had the case hanging over her before she was charged.[2] A social inquiry report found Fisher extremely remorseful, and she said she acted because she had a “stupid but kind heart” and was concerned for her friend.[2]
