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.