Pubdate: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 Source: Richmond Review, The (CN BC) Copyright: 2001 Richmond Public Library Contact: http://www.rpl.richmond.bc.ca/community/RichmondReview/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/704 Author: Martin van den Hemel, staff reporter WIRETAP LEADS INVESTIGATORS TO ECSTASY SMUGGLER Drug Mule Part Of String Of Arrests Of Major E Manufacturers A police phone wiretap in the Netherlands helped the local airport drug squad nab an ecstasy smuggler. Daniel K. Berge was first detained by police in June 1999 after a tip was received. Around the same time, another drug courier was arrested in Calgary. Berge was found carrying 8,000 tablets of the popular mind-altering rave party drug strapped to his body. But he wasn't charged and was in fact released because police didn't want to jeopardize a European police investigation, federal Crown Counsel Gerry Sair said. A member of the Vancouver RCMP drug squad said police in Holland arrested a couple of major European drug manufacturers in Amsterdam and shut down a couple of labs which were producing ecstasy 24 hours per day. "They were pounding out tablets like Tim Hortons pounds out doughnuts," said the drug squad member. Aside from the two couriers in Vancouver and Calgary, he said there were one or two other couriers arrested in Eastern Canada on the same phone wiretap information. Berge was finally charged several months after he was originally arrested and then plead guilty last October to the smuggling charge. Sair said the maximum sentence Berge faced was 10 years, but Richmond Provincial Court Judge Ron Fratkin took into consideration the fact that Berge was simply a courier. Berge is also prohibited from possessing a firearm for 10 years. - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk