Pubdate: Fri, 20 Jan 2006
Source: Hamilton Spectator (CN ON)
Copyright: 2006 The Hamilton Spectator
Contact:  http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/181
Author: Carmela Fragomeni
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

LIFE SENTENCE FOR 'DESPICABLE' COCAINE KINGPIN

Cocaine kingpin Alfredo Malanca was called "a purveyor of misery" and 
"despicable" before being sentenced to life imprisonment for 
smuggling more than a quarter tonne of cocaine into Canada.

Superior Court Justice Gordon Thomson, in sentencing Malanca, 33, in 
a Hamilton courtroom yesterday, spoke first of the devastating effect 
of the cocaine on society, causing misery, suffering and degradation 
to users and destruction, crime and violence in society as users turn 
to crime to support their habit and street gang dealers kill each 
other in turf wars.

"It's clear you have no feelings of any kind for anyone, and in 
particular the end users (of cocaine) and their misery or the public 
as victims ... you do not appear to have any conscience," Thomson 
told the Bolton man.

Prosecutor Tom Andreopoulos said the life imprisonment sentence is 
rare in drug cases, but that Thomson was sending a message that the 
quantity of cocaine seized and gravity of its impact, if it had hit 
the streets, needed nothing less.

It means the earliest Malanca can be eligible for parole is in seven 
years, he said.

Malanca was convicted by a Hamilton jury in October of importing 272 
kilograms of cocaine and also of conspiring with others to importing 
it. He had no previous criminal record.

Drugs were flown in from Jamaica in a chartered jet, but were seized 
by RCMP on Nov. 7, 2001, at Lake Simcoe Regional Airport in Oro 
Medonte, north of Barrie.

Court heard the drugs would have cost $6 million in Jamaica, but had 
an ultimate street value of $26.9 million.

The pilot, two passengers and three men on the ground were arrested 
at the scene. Malanca was arrested in July 2002 with two dozen others 
who were charged with a much wider conspiracy to import and 
distribute about $95 million in cocaine, hashish and marijuana 
imported from Panama, Chile, Colombia and the Caribbean.

Malanca is described as one of three kingpins in a drug smuggling and 
trafficking network operating in Halifax, Montreal, Hamilton and Toronto.

Although Malanca was not at the Lake Simcoe airport when the 272 
kilograms were smuggled in, Thomson said he had no doubt Malanca was 
behind it. And despite the defence suggesting one of those arrested 
at the airport, Dean Roberts of Montreal, was the boss and key 
player, Thomson said Malanca was the boss who had others do the dirty 
work for him as he sat comfortably in Toronto. "I am satisfied you 
are in the top echelon of the cocaine business."

The sentence evoked sobs and anger from Malanca's family and 
relatives in the courtroom, and temporarily put nerves on edge when 
one of them angrily stormed out of the courtroom as Thomson gave out 
the sentence.

RCMP investigators who worked for three years on Project Olco, which 
began with a tip to the Mounties' Hamilton drug section, were happy 
to see Malanca sent away for so long. Corporal Brian Reed said it was 
a fitting and rightfully deserved sentence.

Thomson said the public doesn't normally learn the names of those at 
the top, but want to know the courts will do their best to deter drug lords.

Thomson said Malanca led a double life, one as a legitimate young 
businessman and the other secretly, as a sophisticated cocaine importer.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom