HOW A DRUG STING LOST ITS BITE

The judge was brutally clear: It was an American act of defiance 'shocking
to the Canadian conscience,' she wrote. 'An abuse of process' that was
'clearly contrary to Canadian sovereign interests.' And it led to an
alleged Vancouver drug trafficker walking out of an extradition hearing a
free man.

To passers-by, the three men chatting on the pier in White Rock must have
looked like any of the hundreds of holidaymakers that stroll by the ocean
on summer weekend afternoons.

In fact, one was "CS2," a confidential informant for the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Agency, posing as a Colombian cocaine trafficker.

CS2 was part of an elaborate "reverse sting" operation that the DEA and the
RCMP had spent weeks setting up.

The other two men were "Ali" and "Dave" -- aka "the main guy," whose real
name was Brent Anthony Licht.

According to a recent B.C. Supreme Court judgment, during that pier chat,
arrangements were being made to trade more than $300,000 in cash plus
$345,000 worth of high-grade pot for 50 kilograms of cocaine in California.

The deal was to have been the first flush of drugs down a cocaine pipeline
being laid into Canada.

It was Aug. 21, 1999. The U.S. agent had stayed overnight at a White Rock
Hotel before being driven to Vancouver, where he was shown a "large bag of
cash."

Then he'd returned to the pier to arrange for the California drug deal to
take place the next week.

When the meeting ended, the men were overheard saying that "everything was
set."

But it wasn't that simple.

Between bureaucracy and red tape, it had taken over a week to get approval
from the RCMP's Ottawa drug czar for the "urgent" DEA request for Phase 1
of the operation, codenamed E-Planet.

Then it had taken another week before the first meeting could take place in
Richmond, under DEA and RCMP surveillance.

The sting had initially been launched after a U.S. suspect told DEA
informants that he was looking to buy 75 kilograms of cocaine per month and
offered to introduce them to the "main guy" in Vancouver.

The DEA proposed continuing the reverse sting by selling one-kilogram
amounts of cocaine in Vancouver.

But the Mounties nixed the deal, saying they had no interest in negotiating
the sale of such small amounts.

Despite that, the DEA informant, a man with a criminal record who was on
probation for fraud, came to Canada again.

There's no indication why CS2 chose to continue the operation or if the DEA
knew what he was doing.

What is known is that he crossed the border without a ministerial permit
from the department of immigration and without the approval of the RCMP.

Those two facts left Licht able to beat an extradition application to face
charges in the U.S. for trafficking and possession of cocaine.

After the White Rock meeting, Licht went to California on Aug. 24, 1999, to
meet with two DEA informants.

"Licht said he was interested in purchasing 200 kilograms of cocaine,"
Justice Janice Dillon wrote in her judgment. "He was willing to trade
high-grade Canadian marijuana at $3,000 a pound as part of the purchase price."

Licht returned to B.C. and U.S. police arrested five men after the deal,
involving fake cocaine, was conducted in a parking lot in Sherman Oaks, Calif.

Four months later, a criminal complaint was filed in U.S. District Court
charging Licht with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute
cocaine. The extradition request was filed in June, 2000. Justice Dillon
slammed the DEA's "illegal conduct" as "shocking" and "detrimental to
international co-operative agreements to assist in criminal matters."

"The wrongdoing here is so offensive to Canadian society as to warrant a
stay (of proceedings)," she ruled.

Now Canadian Alliance justice critic Chuck Cadman says he plans to ask
questions about the amount of red tape the RCMP have to go through to get
approval for such an operation.

"Canadian cocaine dealers are offensive to Canadian society too," Cadman
says. "It's the red tape and bureaucracy to get anything done in Canada
that caused this. There are so many hoops the RCMP have to jump through."

Cadman says that he understands why the judge felt the DEA had breached
Canadian laws by coming into the country without approval, but that the
failed extradition is "more of an indictment of our process."

Licht's lawyer, Richard Peck, said his client faces no charges in B.C.
"He's a family man," Peck said. "I think he's happy to have it behind him."

Calls to the DEA in Los Angeles went unanswered and by press time, the RCMP
had not responded to questions about the case.