Pubdate: Wed, 11 May 2005
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 The Vancouver Sun
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Maurice Bridge
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)

CUSTOMS AGENT REMOVED FROM JOB

Altaf Merali, Accused Of Smuggling In U.S., Suspended Pending Investigation

SEATTLE - Altaf Merali, the Canadian customs agent charged last week with 
conspiring to distribute 100 kilograms of marijuana in the U.S., has been 
pulled off the job.

Faith St. John, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Border Services Agency in 
Vancouver, said Tuesday Merali would not be working for CBSA in the 
immediate future.

"He has been relieved of his duties pending an internal investigation," she 
said.

She would not say if he will continue to be paid, nor would she discuss any 
details relating to the agency's investigation.

Merali, 37, was ordered released on a $50,000 US cash bond posted by his 
mother when he appeared in a Seattle courtroom Monday.

He was arrested a week ago Tuesday after being caught in a random border 
check as he drove through the Pacific Highway border crossing with his 
customs uniform hanging in the window of his vehicle.

He allegedly confessed to smuggling the marijuana in the vehicle he was 
driving, and later helped identify the pickup man at a Bellingham restaurant.

In a sworn statement to a judge in Seattle after his arrest, he claimed he 
was coerced into smuggling by an Indo-Canadian gangster in the Surrey 
neighbourhood where he lived with his wife and two children.

RCMP Const. Randall Wong, of the B.C. integrated border enforcement team, 
said Tuesday police have begun to look into the possibility that Merali was 
being threatened.

"There have been a few preliminary inquiries," he said Tuesday. "But they 
are only inquiries, not a full-fledged investigation."

He said what police do here depends largely on what Merali told 
investigators during his time in custody in the U.S. He added local 
investigators are waiting for American authorities "to do their due 
diligence" in investigating Merali's claims and making any request for 
Canadian assistance.

U.S. district attorney David Jennings, who opposed the decision by U.S. 
federal district court Judge Monica Benton to allow Merali to return to 
Canada on bail, was scornful of Merali's coercion argument, calling it a 
"built-in defence mechanism."

"There has to be a gun in your back," he said outside court after the hearing.

Merali is the second border agency staff member to make a claim of coercion 
in relation to the illegal transport of drugs across the Canada-U.S. border 
locally.

Cory Whitfield, an eight-year veteran of the U.S. Customs and Border 
Protection Agency who was arrested Sept. 13, 2004 as he tried to smuggle 
243 kilograms of marijuana across the border into the U.S. at Aldergrove, 
said he was the "fall guy" in an alleged trafficking scheme centered in 
Surrey and said that if he talked he would be a "dead man."

He identified his Surrey connection as a man named John, and said John and 
another man used compromising photographs showing him in situations 
involving drugs and a sexual encounter to force him to work for them.

Whitfield accepted a prosecution deal for a minimum five-year sentence, and 
his claim was never examined in court.

Merali is due back in court in Seattle on May 18 for a preliminary hearing.
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MAP posted-by: Beth