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. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth