Pubdate: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 Source: Victoria News (CN BC) Copyright: 2005 Victoria News Contact: http://www.vicnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1267 Author: Brennan Clarke Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?236 (Corruption - Outside U.S.) PIECING TOGETHER THE BASI AFFAIR It's been almost 18 months since police descended on the provincial legislature to collect evidence that resulted in criminal charges against ministerial assistants Dave Basi and Bob Virk. It's been almost twice that long since the start of an RCMP investigation into money-laundering, drug-trafficking and organized crime that resulted in charges against Basi and seven other men from Ontario and B.C. And judging by the snail's pace of legal proceedings so far, it will be many more months before the public gets an accurate picture of the events that led to these charges. (Basi's arraignment hearing on the drug charges has been delayed until the end of June, as has his arraignment on fraud and breach of trust charges stemming from the legislature raid.) There's a good chance the trials won't begin until next year and an even better chance that one will have to be completed before the other begins. Still, there's a fair amount of information in the public domain that, when viewed as a whole, offers plenty of insight into both the government-related charges and the investigation that led RCMP to the provincial legislature. What emerges is a complicated web of family and political ties, a hazy picture of people with money that needed hiding and people who helped them hide it. The logical starting point is Dec. 1, 2003, a date that marked the end of 20 months of preliminary investigation and the beginning of a series of search warrants and evidence seizures that brought charges against Basi, Virk, Victoria police officer Ravinder Dosajnh and eight others. Four weeks before the Dec. 28, 2003 raid on the legislature, RCMP asked the Attorney General's ministry to appoint a special prosecutor in the case, an indication that police were well aware of the implications of what they had uncovered. Just over a week later, police searched the Bremerton Street home of Mandeep Sandhu, seizing a computer hard drive and, we later learned, an undisclosed quantity of cash. On Dec. 15, 2003, Victoria police Const. Ravinder Dosanjh, was suspended for breach of trust and obstruction of justice after a 10-month internal investigation. In December 2004, Dosanjh was charged with advising Sandhu to lie about "the origin of funds seized" from the Bremerton Street house. Victoria police have said that Dosanjh's suspension was "indirectly related" to the suspension of Dosanjh. They haven't elaborated on that connection, but the warrants provide a few hints. It's been established that Dosanjh and Sandhu are cousins who owned property together. We know that Sandhu had some money originating from questionable sources and Dosanjh allegedly counselled him to mislead police about the origins of the cash. Nine months later, in September 2004, alleged criminal links emerged between Basi and Sandhu when the two men were among eight people from B.C. and Ontario charged with drug trafficking. It's clear that RCMP learned something during the course of their drug investigation that got them interested first in Sandhu, then in Dosanjh. It also appears, in retrospect, that the Dec. 28 police raids on the legislature were a sideshow to the main event, which for police has always been the drug-trafficking and organized-crime connection. Most reporters I've talked to believe that police stumbled on improper dealings with regard to the province's move to sell BC Rail, triggering an entirely new branch of the investigation. Just before Christmas, Basi, Virk and a third man, Transportation Ministry communications officer Aneal Basi, were charged with bribery, breach of trust and fraud in relation to the provincial government's sale of BC Rail. Of particular note is the inclusion of a money-laundering charge against Aneal Basi, Dave Basi's cousin, in the court documents. As with Sandhu, police allege Aneal Basi was involved in laundering money, specifically cash he accepted from Basi between "April 1, 2002 and Jan. 31, 2004." The origin of the money that Aneal was allegedly laundering on behalf of his cousin remains unclear, although logic would suggest that bribery proceeds and drug-trafficking profits are the two leading candidates. The documents clearly imply that Basi, who made about $65,000 a year at his day job yet co-owned four homes in Greater Victoria, had money of dubious origins that needed hiding. Within days of the raid on the legislature, RCMP uncovered and dismantled a marijuana growing operation at a Shawnigan Lake house owned by Dave Basi. As the months wore on, edited search warrant information confirmed the original investigation focused on the "bulk trafficking" of marijuana and cocaine. Hints of the investigation's broad scope emerged last June when a federal Crown prosecutor revealed that the RCMP were seeking additional search warrants. Three months later, the drug-trafficking charges were laid against Sandhu, Basi, Sooke resident Jagmohan Bains and five Ontario residents. Bains, whose case is being handled by a federal prosecutor, isn't scheduled to go to trial until April 3, 2006. In the meantime, there's a publication ban on the evidence. Sandhu's trial is also subject to a publication ban. During a recent discussion of the Basi case, a News Group reporter said something like "so what, he had a little grow-op in Shawnigan Lake." We don't know for sure what Dave Basi was into or how deep he was into it, but clearly the allegations against him involve far more than a few pot plants in a rental house up the Malahat. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom