Crooked in Canada

Once again I find myself blogging about dumb drug traffickers from Canada, and as usual the drug trafficker was busted.

What gets me about this guy (an Asian from British Columbia) is that he, like a handful of other Canadians back in 2006, tried to smuggle drugs into Australia via a cargo ship, a method which failed not once, but twice in 2006.

Obviously this guy doesn’t pay attention to news about Canadian drug traffickers getting busted overseas, otherwise he would have known that smuggling drugs on a ship from Canada sailing to Oz isn’t going to be successful, in fact any Canadian smuggling drugs into Australia faces the very high probability of getting busted given that cargo and mail coming from Canada into Australia, whether by air by sea, are on the Australia Federal Police and Australia Customs radar, and that all shipments regardless of what the drugs are hidden in, come under scrutiny the moment they arrive at one of Australia’s ports or international airports. They’re very familiar with the Canadian drug trafficking methods, and of course they have a lot of experience when it comes to Canadian drug smugglers. During the almost 4 years I’ve been living in Oz, there have been some pretty big drug busts involving Canadians, three that I can think of off the top of my head.

Customs and the AFP can tell you from experience that Canada is one country they pay very close attention to when it comes to threat of drugs being smuggled into Australia.

Now about this latest drug bust itself.

The Australian Federal Police raided a home in Melbourne, Victoria after $AU78 million worth of cocaine, ecstasy, and ice was discovered hidden in foot spas and massage chairs aboard a ship that arrived from Canada a week ago. The smugglers were arrested the day before yesterday.

In 2006 five Canadians were busted after trying to smuggle a large quantity drugs hidden in computers that arrived by ship and at the time I thought they were just as stupid as these last guys given that a few months earlier given there was another drug bust where a large quantity of drugs were found in the hull of a sportsboat that was shipped from Canada in a container aboard a ship.

Man Canadian drug smugglers are stupid. Wouldn’t you agree? They might want to stop dipping into their own product so that they can think rationally and utilise whatever is left of their drug-fried brain in a more productive way for themselves.

All up there was 124kg of cocaine, 66kg of ice, and 121kg of MDMA (ice) this time around. That’s a helluva lot of drugs, and an X-ray machines would have picked up such a large quantity in a heartbeat (yes technology used in the war on drugs here in Oz is that good, but apparently drug traffickers don’t think so). RCMP are currently helping with the investigation and arrests are expected in Canada during the investigation on their end in the near future, if they haven’t already occurred.

Ken Tang, 41, from Vancouver, BC and believed to be one of the ringleaders, has been charged with three counts of importing a banned commercial quantity of drugs and three counts of attempting to possess a banned commercial quantity of drugs.

You can bet Tang is singing like a canary to Australian authorities now, and I suspect more arrests will be made in British Columbia very soon.

Anybody stupid enough to try and pull this kind of drug smuggling operation off in this day and age, and especially after 9/11, is probably stupid enough to risk his own life by ratting on his co-conspirators, and Tang likely fits that mould, if only because he was stupid enough to believe he could pull the drug smuggling plan off in the first place. Stupid enough to believe something like that, stupid enough to believe that ratting on his co-conspirators wouldn’t get him killed. We’re talking about a serious amount of drugs, lost revenue, and a lifetime in jail for all involved, and if he rats out his co-conspirators, he’s a dead man.

Tang is going down, and he is likely going to spend the better part of what is left of his life in an Australian prison, if he doesn’t rat out his co-conspirators of course.

The maximum sentence Tang faces is life in prison, and given the amount of drugs involved, it’s safe to assume that life in prison is what he is going to get, unless of course like I said, he strikes a deal with authorities and co-operates with the investigation, which I think he’ll do. If he does that, he’s marked for death, so any deal he strikes that means he doesn’t receive a life sentence will in the end mean he’ll be an easy target for family, friends, or associates of those he rats on when he walks out of prison.

Tang deserves whatever fate awaits him. If he gets life in jail, so be it. If he strikes a deal with investigators and receives a lighter sentence for co-operating, then so be it.
If he strikes a deal, does his time and is released and then somebody kills him, so be it. I don’t care what happens to him just as long as he pay a price for his crime. If somebody kills him because he ratted out one of his co-conspirators, well then there’s one less stupid Canadian drug smuggler on the street in Canada, right? I really don’t care what happens to Tang just as long as he is punished for his crime. By the way, if had been busted in Indonesia, he would have received the death sentence. They would have no problem putting a bullet in his head, especially with the quantity of drugs he was busted with.

And finally, a message to anybody in Canada who might be thinking about smuggling drugs into Oz:

DON’T BE A F**KING IDIOT MATE, YOU’RE GOING TO GET CAUGHT. THE AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE, CUSTOMS, AND BORDER SECURITY ARE GOOD AT THEIR JOB AND THEY HAVE THE BEST EQUIPMENT MONEY CAN BUY TO FIGHT THE WAR ON DRUGS. GIVE YOUR HEAD A SHAKE IF YOU REALLY THINK YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH SMUGGLING DRUGS INTO OZ. GET A REAL F**KING JOB YOU F**KWITS!

The News Article I Read

Police bust foot spa drug ring
By Simon Mossman

June 12, 2008 05:45pm
Article from: AAP

POLICE in Australia and Canada are continuing to investigate a major drug syndicate after seizing more than 300kg of drugs hidden in foot spas.

Australian Federal Police agents swooped on an address in Melbourne overnight, arresting four men, including a Canadian national, after tracking the delivery of the drugs to Braybrook, in the city’s west.

The consignment, which arrived at the Port of Melbourne last week on board a ship from Canada, included 124kg of cocaine, 66kg of methylamphetamines (ice) and 121kg of MDMA (ecstasy) inside the bases of 13 foot spas.

AFP national manager, border and international, Tim Morris, said today it was unusual to see large amounts of different drugs smuggled into the country in the same shipment.

“It’s … not the first detection by Customs of large-ish amounts of narcotics coming in from Canada, but obviously we’re looking at the wider implications of that as well,” Assistant Commissioner Morris said.

“… It’s currently the subject of ongoing investigations, both here in Australia but certainly with our international counterparts in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

“Obviously we have a lot of questions, and investigations are now taking place in Canada to look at the other end of the syndicate.

“It’s quite unusual that you see a shipment consisting of three different narcotic commodities.”

Mr Morris said the ecstasy arrived ready-for-sale but the cocaine and ice could be cut further to increase the quantities.

He added the drugs – which have an estimated street value of $78 million – had the potential to cause a further $90m harm to the Australian community because of the damage and health problems they caused.

Four men appeared in court today charged over their alleged roles in the smuggling ring.

Ken Tang, 41, of Vancouver, Canada, was charged with three counts of importing a banned commercial quantity of drugs and three counts of attempting to possess a banned commercial quantity of drugs.

Thuan Le, 26, of Kings Park, Victoria, and Son Anh Pham, 46, of no fixed address, were each charged with three counts of attempting to possess a commercial quantity of drugs.

Tien Trinh, 26, of St Albans, Victoria, was charged with one count of attempting to possess a commercial quantity of methylamphetamines, or ice.

All four were remanded in custody to reappear before Melbourne Magistrates’ Court in September.

Customs national manager for cargo operations south Graham Krisohos said the hidden drugs were discovered after agents X-rayed the consignment of foot spas and massage chairs.

“It was quite a sophisticated concealment – it just goes to show the lengths syndicates will go to conceal these types of products,” Mr Krisohos said.

“What this seizure demonstrates is we have the intelligence and the technology to find these shipments, no matter how sophisticated the manner of import.

“You can bring it through the mail, you can bring it on your person, you can bring it by air, you can bring it in by spa baths – Customs will find it.”

Mr Morris said the maximum penalty if convicted of the drug offences was life in prison and fines of up to $825,000.