DRUG FINANCIER SAYS HE WAS GOVERNMENT AGENT

Convict Asks Canada To Help Fight Betrayal By French Officials

Once considered one of the Montreal Mafia's most powerful
drug-importation financiers, Marc Fievet was known for coming up with
millions in cash overnight to bankroll smuggling plots the world over.

These days, the French cocaine importer is trying to clear his name
from behind bars with the sensational story that he was actually an
undercover drug agent.

In 1997, Mr. Fievet, 59, was condemned to life in prison after
pleading guilty to a failed plot to import six tonnes of cocaine into Canada.

He was later transferred to Nantes, France, to serve his sentence
closer to family.

Mr. Fievet has told the Citizen about his "true quality" in the
drug-importation business, claiming he's worked as an undercover agent for
French customs since 1988.

He has since appealed to Martin Cauchon, the federal justice minister, for
mercy.

His story is winning support in France, with investigative reporters
uncovering facts that bolster his claims that French customs officials
simply cut him loose after his Canadian arrest to keep their
infiltration methods secret.

"My father was secretly working for French customs. Nobody knew that
at the time of his arrest and he deserves a new trial or a pardon," said
Muriel Jahier, the jailed man's daughter.

In letters to the Citizen, Mr. Fievet says he became an operative for
French customs in 1988. Based in Spain, he says he successfully
infiltrated several organized crime networks, suppling information that
helped thwart major drug shipments.

"To gain these results, I completely integrated myself into the life
of drug traffickers. My actions consisted of purchasing ships used to
transport drugs for drug-trafficking organizations," Mr Fievet said.

In 1997, Mr. Fievet surprised the court when he waived his right to a
preliminary inquiry, held to see if there's enough evidence to warrant a trial.

Then, rather than mounting a well-financed defence, he simply pleaded guilty.

French officials "encouraged me to plead guilty and not to reveal my
activities ... For my silence, these senior officials assured me a
quick release after my return to France," Mr. Fievet said.

"It was under these conditions, and concern to conform with the
requirements of the French service but also to preserve the security
of my family with regard to potential reprisals that I accepted to
keep quiet my role as hidden agent and my important role in the war
against the international trafficking of drugs," he said.

His public appeal has compromised his security in prison, making him a
target for organized crime.

If Mr. Fievet's infiltration claims are true, he managed to outwit some
of the Montreal Mafia's top lieutenants.

Undercover or not, he had a knack for setting up billion-dollar drug plots.

One such deal, laid out in RCMP documents used at his trial, involved a
bogus shipping company Mr. Fievet helped set up in Europe.

On Nov. 5, 1993, Mr. Fievet walked into the Banco Atlantico in
Gibraltar with a sack full of money, motioned to the manager and went into
a private room.

An associate, German skipper Jurgen Kirchhoff, waited in the lobby.

They had known one another only for a couple of weeks. Under an alias,
Mr. Fievet had introduced himself as a frontman for investors who had an
offer the boat captain couldn't refuse.

He said they wanted to bankroll a shipping company, its fleet to be
skippered by Mr. Kirchhoff, who would be paid $10,000 U.S. per month plus
10 per cent of profits.

But it was the skipper, alone, who was left to incorporate the
company, Pacificsun Shipping Ltd., and open a bank account.

Mr. Fievet emerged from the bank meeting an hour later.

The bank manager handed the skipper three cheques. In all,
$2.3-million U.S. had been deposited in Mr. Kirchhoff's bank account,
$2,075,000 of which was used to purchase the ship MV Pacifico,
according to RCMP files.

Though Mr. Kirchhoff considered himself a mere trustee for the
investors, the skipper was, according to letters patent, the sole
owner of the shipping company -- a firm that held clear title to a
$2-million U.S. vessel. He became the lone owner of the ship yet had
not paid a single dime or borrowed toward its purchase. There weren't
even any documents giving security to Mr. Fievet or the silent
investor.

One month later, the skipper set sail for South America on the new
shipping firm's first voyage.

It would be his last.

On Feb. 22, 1994, his long shipping career ended as the skipper of a
cocaine mothership in a high-seas pursuit by commando-trained RCMP
aboard a navy destroyer off the coast of Nova Scotia.

The real offer that fell into the skipper's lap had more to do with
shipping Mafia drugs, almost six tonnes.

The German skipper and several other co-conspirators, including
Montreal mobsters, are serving lengthy prison sentences.

In his letter to the federal justice minister, Mr. Fievet writes: "I was
judged without consideration of my action against drug trafficking
being known by those who judged me. I am subject to an imprisonment
which, every day, becomes more unjust."

"You are the only person with the power to end this judicial
nightmare," he wrote.