Pubdate: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 Source: Expositor, The (CN ON) Copyright: 2007 The Brantford Expositor Contact: http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1130 Author: Heather Ibbotson CITY FAMILY CAUGHT IN DRUG WORLD EXTORTION Man Pleads Guilty To Role In Family's Ordeal brantford - High-stakes drug deals gone awry, gun-toting kidnappers, a Punjabi enforcer, money stashed behind drywall and mysterious Chinese drug bosses. Thrilling highlights of a new movie? Not even close. These were bits of a bizarre tale presented Friday in a city courtroom. A Stoney Creek man named Gurvirinder Mangat, 30, pleaded guilty in Ontario Court to one count of extortion for playing the role of enforcer in this twisted tale. All other charges laid against him in connection with the incident were withdrawn. Harvinder Pal Singh, his wife Amrit-Balkaur Hundal and their children, aged three and one, were kidnapped by persons unknown from their city home six days before last Christmas and held for three days in Mississauga and the Niagara Region. Singh was involved in trafficking and people higher on the underworld ladder were impatient for payment of an estimated $400,000 in drug money, court heard. Collect debt It was alleged that Mangat's bosses wanted to collect the debt from Singh, whom they believed ripped them off for a January 2006 shipment of drugs worth nearly $500,000 that had crossed the border into the U.S. To encourage repayment of the debt, three men were hired to kidnap Singh and his family. On Dec. 19, 2006, at about 11 p.m., the doorbell rang at Singh's residence. Hundal was in the kitchen, cooking. Her one-year-old child was with her. Singh was downstairs watching television with their three-year-old child. Hundal peeked outside but saw no one. So, she reached out and opened the door. The three intruders burst inside and pushed Hundal to the floor. The intruders corralled the family upstairs. Two of men brandished .45-calibre revolvers. Singh knew why the men were there, court heard. They had been sent to recoup the drug money. Singh retrieved an orange gym bag from a bedroom and removed $96,000 in cash that had been stuffed inside. Another $4,000 was added to the pot from Hundal's wallet. Hustled into van The family was then hustled into a silver van and driven to a residence on Brougham Street in Mississauga. Once there, Singh was confronted by Mangat, who shoved a replica gun into his face. Speaking in Punjabi, Mangat accused Singh of cheating him and said he wanted the $400,000 - now. "Pay the $400,000 or I'll give you to the Chinese," Mangat said. The unnamed and unidentified Chinese are believed to have been Mangat's bosses and the owners of the drugs, court heard. Mangat then lowered the replica gun to Singh's knees and threatened to blow off his kneecaps. There was also another, unidentified, man at the residence, who assisted Mangat in extorting the cash from Singh. The Singh family was then transported to a farmhouse near Niagara Falls or Fort Erie. From there, Singh was allowed to leave, under the close supervision of one of his black male captors, to visit some of his sources in an attempt to scrape together more cash. During this time, Singh managed to send a message to a friend that his family had been kidnapped and he was being held hostage. Singh and the kidnappers also returned to Singh's Brantford home, where a further $210,000 was added to the drug dealers' reimbursement, having been removed from its hiding place in the drywall. After handing over a total of $310,000 in outstanding drug money, Singh and his family were released. They were dropped off with their vehicle, strangely, just outside the Toronto Detention Centre. On their way home, the family's vehicle was stopped by police, who had been alerted to the apparent kidnapping, and the allegations of the crime were reported. Hundal has since left the country with her children and returned to India. Court heard that Mangat, a landed immigrant from the Punjab, has resided in Canada since 1994. He is married and has two children. He had no criminal record at the time of the extortion but has since been convicted of an unrelated offence, court heard. The Crown and defence presented a joint submission to the court for a sentence of time served plus probation for Mangat, who had spent 110 days in jail since his arrest on Jan. 8. Those 110 days were considered the equivalent of having spent about seven months behind bars, based on the regularly accepted two-for-one formula. The Crown's case, had the matter gone to trial, was in serious jeopardy, court heard. Singh's wife and children had fled to India with no apparent intention of returning. As well, it seemed that Singh would have refused to testify at trial. Justice Ken Lenz accepted the joint submission. The judge acknowledged that Mangat's sentence of time served plus probation for two years was on the "extreme low-end" but, given the problems with the Crown's case and the "slim to nil" likelihood of conviction at trial, it was better to have a conviction and probation to protect the community than nothing at all. "Mangat now has a record reflecting his serious bad character and bad judgment," the judge said. Lenz also said he had some sympathy for Singh's family but none for Singh. He added that he thought it unlikely the public at large cares whether drug traffickers extort money from one another to replenish their ill-gotten gains. Mangat was placed on probation for two years. One of the terms of his probation bans him from entering Brant County except for travelling directly through the county on Highway 403. Charges of forcible confinement and extortion earlier laid against Asad Malik, 39, of Mississauga, were withdrawn. Malik lived at his brother's house in Mississauga (the house where the Singh family was taken) but neither Singh nor his wife could identify Malik as having had any involvement in the crime. The three kidnappers were never identified. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek