[T&T Guardian] A former Florida high school teacher, who pleaded guilty last year to purchasing firearms for a Trinidad-based criminal organisation, has now been sentenced to prison in the United States.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 47-year-old Shannon Nicole Samlalsingh of Temple Terrace was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison for conspiracy to make false statements to a firearms dealer.
Samlalsingh pleaded guilty in June 2025.
Court documents said she bought seven firearms and falsely declared on federal forms the weapons were for her personal use.
Investigators said the guns were instead handed to members of a transnational criminal group and later smuggled into Trinidad.
U.S. authorities said some of the weapons were linked to a shipment intercepted at Piarco International Airport in April 2022.
Trinidad and Tobago authorities seized two punching bags and other goods arriving from the United States which concealed firearms, ammunition and firearm parts, including 9mm pistols, revolvers, a shotgun, AR-15 components and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
Investigators said Samlalsingh had purchased four of the firearms recovered in the shipment.
The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, with assistance from the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service’s Transnational Organized Crime Unit and Special Investigations Unit.