The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Chief Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

PLP MP-elect for West Grand Bahama Kingsley Smith yesterday issued a statement about his alleged role in arranging an Election Day flight that crashed with a convicted cocaine smuggler aboard, calling them “salacious, defamatory and ill-conceived.” But he did not actually address whether or not he played any role in arranging the flight.

His comments came after The Tribune reported Tuesday that he declined to answer a series of questions about the crash and how Jonathan “Player” Gardiner, a rescued passenger now in US custody, came to be on the aircraft.

Mr Smith’s name surfaced after Olympia Outten, one of 11 passengers aboard the downed aircraft, claimed he helped arrange travel for her family on the flight after a ticketing mix-up.

Ms Outten and her family travelled from Marsh Harbour, Abaco, to Grand Bahama to vote in the general election.

She claimed a flight agent mistakenly booked her and her family on the wrong flight, prompting her to contact Mr Smith.

“He told me, ‘Miss Outten don’t worry, we sending in a charter, a charter coming in from Nassau, you and your children can jump on that charter because he sending them there for us,’” she said. “That’s how we got to go on that plane. Me and my sons weren’t supposed to be on that plane. We were supposed to be on Flamingo Air.”

Mr Smith said he was aware of news stories about him and called them “an obvious attempt to argue a negative.”

The Tribune put a series of questions to Mr Smith, including how Gardiner came to be aboard the flight and whether or not he knew him, or pilot Ian Nixon, also a convicted drug smuggler. However, he declined to elaborate and said: “We will get to that at some point.”

The questions were again put to him yesterday. No response was forthcoming, other than his statement.

Gardiner, who was previously imprisoned in the United States for drug and money laundering offences, had been under DEA surveillance for up to three years as a central figure in an alleged international drug trafficking organisation.

He appeared in court in Orlando, Florida, on Friday charged under US drug laws with attempted and conspiratorial international drug trafficking offences. His case is now under the jurisdiction of the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

His arrest appears to connect him to the Georgia-based drug syndicate named in the November 2024 indictment of former Royal Bahamas Police Force Chief Superintendent Elvis Nathaniel Curtis and others on federal narcotics and firearms charges.

That indictment alleged the group trafficked drugs through The Bahamas and into the United States with help from corrupt Bahamian government officials, including politicians and senior members of the police and defence forces.

A DEA deposition also alleges that two years after Gardiner was deported from the United States, six years into his sentence, his Bahamian construction company “bid for and secured Bahamian government-issued construction projects” and that he used his buildings to launder drug proceeds.

The Davis administration has not commented on any connection to Gardiner, but has said it is fully cooperating with authorities through diplomatic, consular, legal and treaty channels.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it continues to seek consular access to Gardiner and will remain engaged with US authorities on the matter.

Mr Smith, who served as parliamentary secretary in the first Davis administration after winning the West Grand Bahama and Bimini by-election, has not yet been appointed to any official government post in the new administration.