The public continues to ask what is going on with the justice system, as charges in yet another high-profile drug case were reported dropped, on Monday, June 1, by the director of public prosecutions (DPP). In this matter, no explanation was given for the action, which previously had seen Francis Young, a businessman, jointly charged with several drug-related offenses, while his co-accused, Brandon Doumith, reportedly remains on remand. The May 2025 matter involved a shipment of cannabis, valued at over $370k, seized at the Deep Water Harbour. Given the lack of explanation, there is speculation that there was pressure on the DPP from high-placed government officials, despite the office being constitutionally independent.
But what is “boggling the mind,” as one local puts it, is the revelation that Young, a national of Jamaica, has applied for Antigua and Barbuda citizenship via the Citizenship by Investment Programme (CIP).
“Why would a citizen of a CARICOM Member State have to go that route?” asks a puzzled local entrepreneur. “If he and his family have been living here lawfully for years already and he’s established a business, I don’t see what impediment he could have faced to obtaining citizenship in the normal way.” Another resident puts it more bluntly: “This smell funny to me!” she declares. Meanwhile, persons inside the justice system are still crying foul over last week’s action by the DPP in which he dropped charges against a Canadian woman accused of carrying cannabis – valued at over a half-million dollars – in her suitcases. “Medical reasons” were cited for the sudden discontinuation of the prosecutor’s case, but no elaboration on those reasons was made. Residents are asking whether this means the woman, Roselynee Crisostomo, is mentally ill – which would account for the blatant importation of the drug in her luggage – or physically ill, requiring the use of cannabis as a treatment. In the latter case, one argues, “She must know that Antigua and Barbuda grow and sell ‘good weed’ right yah!”
However, well-placed sources claim that a “corrupt conspiracy between some top public servants” was at work there. It is boldly alleged to REAL News that the conspiracy involved persons in the upper ranks of the Police Force; the Drugs/Narcotics Squad; the Office of the DPP; and the Office of the Attorney-General. The sources claim that the decision to discontinue that drug case was made at a meeting between four men representing those offices. It was after one of these officers left the country on official business that the process of the discontinuation went into effect – with “other senior police officers learning about it via the media like everyone else,” the insiders say. “Who brought up the idea of discontinuing the case on medical/humanitarian grounds … is not known. However, for a meeting to have been convened at the office of the minister for national security would indicate that he had summoned the other parties to his office,” one source alleges.
He expresses further concern for the appearance of collusion in this matter, given the revelations of an apparent high-level conspiracy that included a prosecution witness in the Nigel Christian murder case.
