Tourist arrested after health supplement mistaken for heroin

An American visitor to Cayman has told how she was arrested after an over-the-counter immunity supplement was wrongly identified as heroin.

The woman had a package of ‘Tro Just Blue’- an energy and immunity booster – along with other health supplements in her luggage.

She said the supplement is considered useful for people who have had COVID.

But when customs officers searched her bag during her visit to Cayman last month, they were suspicious.

“They went through my stuff in a really intense way,” she said.

All her supplements were examined using a field test.

“That was the last one they tested and it turned a certain colour. The officer said, ‘this is heroin’.

“My first thought was ‘this is crazy’, it is clearly not heroin. It was just absurd.”

The woman, who we agreed to keep anonymous in this story, said she was taken to a back room and strip searched before being transported to the Cayman Islands Detention Centre to be fingerprinted and have mugshots taken.

She was bailed and released, but had to return to the detention centre a couple of times during her stay before further tests confirmed that the substance was not heroin and her passport was returned and the case dropped.

There is no suggestion that officers did anything wrong in this case.

However, the scenario raises questions about the efficacy of the field tests.

Customs and Border Control, after multiple requests for comment on this story, told the Compass that field testing kits were a “common tool used by law enforcement agencies around the world”.

“Arrests are often made as a result of a field test and this case was one such case. In almost all of our cases, the field tests were accurate as the results were subsequently confirmed by the Forensic Laboratory. For those reasons, we do not have any concerns about the efficacy of our field testing kits as even in a laboratory an occasional false positive or false negative will occur,” a statement from the agency read.

Concern over long term consequences of arrest

The case is also another example, says lawyer Richard Barton, of an arrest that could impact the life chances of the person involved.

The woman is concerned that having to declare an ‘arrest on suspicion of heroin trafficking’ will impact her future.

“I don’t know how all that works but I would like to have the arrest not be on my file,” she said.

The US organisation ‘ban the box’ has campaigned against questions about arrests being included on passport application or job forms.

But the question remains on some visa and travel applications.

It is not exactly clear what records police would provide in those circumstances, or if US authorities would necessarily be aware of a Cayman arrest.

A Royal Cayman Islands Police Service spokesperson said a person’s official criminal record would not include arrests where no charges were brought. They referred questions about visa and passport applications to the Passport Office.

Barton, who represented the woman, said that, regardless of the practical reality, law-abiding citizens would always be inclined to answer honestly on an official form, especially a visa or passport application.

He said, “There needs to be a transparent process to have these arrests expunged from the record. At the moment you can spend time in jail for a serious offence and eventually have that removed from your record but there is not a similar process for arrests, no matter how trivial or unproven the alleged offence may be.”

CBC, in their statement, clarified the process following arrest on suspicion of importing drugs into the islands.

While the arrested person is interviewed and bailed, the suspected drug will be sent to the forensics laboratory for confirmation – which can take a few days.

If the lab test is positive, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions will make a decision regarding charges after reviewing the investigation file.

“If the lab test is negative, the person is released and cleared and the file is closed with no further action necessary. The reason(s) for the person’s release will appear in our records and the initial arrest will not impede future travel to or employment in the Cayman Islands,” a statement from CBC said.