Pubdate: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC) Copyright: 2006 The Vancouver Sun Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477 Author: Ian Mulgrew Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?188 (Outlaw Bikers) THREE COCAINE SMUGGLERS TO LEARN THEIR FATE TODAY Only Way To Stop The Long Line Of People Seeking Profits Of Crime Is To End Drug Prohibition Four years ago, they were busted along with a score of others across B.C. and in Washington state. Today three middle-aged men from the Fraser Valley and the Interior will rise before B.C. Supreme Court Judge Anne MacKenzie for sentencing as a result of their involvement in a large, international cocaine smuggling ring. Their arrests in August 2001 were part of the culmination of an incredibly complex, law-enforcement initiative that spanned the continent and targeted organized crime. The goal of a host of U.S. and Canadian law-enforcement agencies acting in concert was to disrupt a handful of independent, lucrative drug-trafficking organizations and the laundering of their substantial illicit profits. At the time of the coordinated international raids, police confiscated large quantities of illicit substances, guns, money and property -- 250 kilograms of dried marijuana, 24,000 pot plants, 35 kilograms of cocaine, hashish, airplanes, vehicles, boats, furniture and recreational equipment. The list is long. Among the score of people charged on both sides of the border were David Oliynyk, then of Langley and 50 at the time; Joseph Lepage, 43, of Kelowna, and Lloyd Ferris, 54, of Abbotsford. Their sentencing, set for today and tomorrow in New Westminster, is the penultimate chapter in the lengthy legal saga that followed those startling arrests and staggering seizures. Concurrently in New Westminster, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Selwyn Romilly is hearing the trial of six men charged with conspiracy to export marijuana. Their fate should be the final scene of what has proven to be a remarkable tale about, and a unique window on, the underground economy of illicit drugs. Elaborate Web Spun All of these individuals were caught in the elaborate web spun by the RCMP and its U.S. allies in a multi-faceted, joint, cross-border investigation called Operation Exacto-Two. That case was really a thicket of investigations with a common root, Operation Exacto, set up to solve the contract killing in the summer of 1996 of a Lower Mainland marijuana grower and the disappearance of his live-in partner. During the investigation of that murder, police focused on a man named Stephen Cox (who was later charged, tried and acquitted of the slaying) and his close associate Gerard Morin, a 43-year-old with convictions as a weapons dealer. Both were considered by detectives to be active in a sprawling criminal organization police dubbed "the company" and both were friendly with a host of recognizable crooks and Hells Angels. The Angels say they are being defamed and have no connection to any of this criminal activity. Nevertheless, as police followed these two goombahs, they opened files on the people they met and learned of a tremendous amount of daily drug trafficking. Eavesdropped On Dozens The RCMP, the FBI, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, border security forces and other law-enforcement agencies would ultimately begin surveillance and wiretaps on dozens and dozens of individuals. Soon, they would be chasing people involved in supplying most of the marijuana consumed in Atlantic Canada, other individuals involved in shipping hundreds of kilograms of pot at a time to the U.S. and, of course, another parcel of people involved in importing massive amounts of cocaine from Mexico through the U.S. and into Canada. What was frustrating for investigators is, instead of finding one giant Mob-like criminal organization, the Mounties and the Americans discovered the illicit drug trade was so large it had spawned numerous independent groups, all thriving in their own niche markets. There were independent growers selling to independent brokers in Canada who were dealing with independent brokers in the U.S. -- each of whom had his own little network. Each was a separate business and the relationship between any two or more of the groups was happenstance, dependent upon need and personal relationships. Occasionally there were people from each group that knew others in another group -- and the groups where that was the case appeared to often assist each other in times of need. Supply and demand ruled. The degree of culpability and the involvement in the criminal underworld of each of those arrested four years ago has varied widely. The sentences that will be handed down in this particular case are likely to be among the heaviest. Oliynyk was no stranger to law enforcement on both sides of the border. In December 1989, as treasurer of the White Rock chapter of the Hells Angels, he was arrested trying to buy more than 13.5 kilograms of cocaine from U.S. undercover agents. The Angels say Oliynyk resigned from the club after he was released from prison. But his long association with Morin -- dating back to the mid-1990s and the original murder of the pot grower -- set off bells for detectives. The RCMP in their applications for warrants in these inter-connected cases placed considerable stress on this tie, according to the evidence, because Oliynyk had been previously identified as having a "hard-on" -- which apparently meant hatred -- for the dead man. After fighting for four years and forcing the legal system to prepare for and go to the expense of setting up a bilingual trial, Oliynyk and his co-accused threw in the towel last November after losing a series of legal challenges that included motions to prevent a mountain of surveillance and wiretap evidence from being admitted at trial They were pronounced guilty Nov. 9 by Justice MacKenzie and sentencing was put over until today. By comparison, some of those netted in Operation Exacto-Two were neophytes and veritable innocents in the nether world of guns, gangs and big-profit, organized crime. Some of the potheads rounded up in these raids, for example, seem quite out of place amid some of the others involved. I have some empathy with their plea they are misportrayed as organized hoodlums when they were agriculturalists growing what some consider a harmless herb. Some of their customers, however, proved to be very heavy -- people known to have an affinity for automatic weapons and handguns loaded with illegal ammunition capable of piercing police body armour. Let's not forget, everyone involved knew or should have known that in this subterranean world, those who were ripped off or those who were unable to collect what they were owed, were precluded from going to the police and courts. Instead, as the investigation revealed, they turned to people who arrived with shotguns and left with a debtor's head. Everyone was well aware of the risks -- especially the three men who are up for sentencing today -- and the potential profits. Taxpayers, though, need to consider the results and the reasons for this raft of prosecutions. I think the crime involved in these expensive and resource-draining proceedings is a direct result of the current criminal drug laws. Drug Laws Spawn Crooks I believe none of these smuggling groups would have a reason to exist if marijuana and cocaine were regulated and controlled in a different manner, stripping them of their value as illicit substances. That's one of the reasons I think it's time to change our laws -- to staunch the flow of huge profits into the pockets of organized crime and to put an end to this black market, with its attendant violence. Putting in jail the individuals pinched in Operation Exacto-Two may disrupt or end their criminal careers, but it did little to reduce the flood of marijuana into the U.S. or cocaine into Canada. The line-up of individuals ready to take their place in such a lucrative business is long, long, long. Imprisoning Al Capone did nothing to stem the organized crime associated with bootlegging, the concomitant violence or the corrosive social fallout of alcohol Prohibition. The distribution gangs and the smugglers in Canada that made millions off the U.S. appetite for booze were only eliminated by the end of prohibition. The way we will get rid of the criminal organizations profiting from the American chemical thirst and the attendant violence, in my view, is by similarly ending the drug prohibition. - --- MAP posted-by: SHeath(DPF Florida)