GUNS, DRUGS AND HIGH-SEAS TERROR

Tuna Venture Has Very Nasty Taint

Robert Forsey and three other Halifax-area men thought they'd landed
dream tuna fishing jobs last fall.

But within weeks of setting sail, they fled the ship's heavily armed,
drug-running bosses in Trinidad, fearing for their lives after
enduring death threats.

Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, Mr. Forsey later learned the
federal government sent those same smugglers his new address, phone
number and other private information three weeks ago. Now, he's
planning to move with his wife and preschool son for the second time
in eight months to keep his family safe.

He first heard about a $300,000-a-year job aboard the 47-metre MV
Bakur, owned by Limar Fishing Ltd. of British Columbia, at a Human
Resources and Social Development Centre job bank in November.

Within days of leaving port on New Year's Eve, he said he and two
other Newfoundland-born Nova Scotians had loaded handguns held to
their foreheads. Those three and another Nova Scotian left the ship
about two weeks later and the vessel continued through the Panama
Canal to British Columbia, where RCMP seized the ship, confiscated two
tonnes of Mexican marijuana and arrested the captain and crew.

Mr. Forsey contacted The Chronicle Herald to complain that Human
Resources sent his employment insurance files to Philip John Stirling,
the Bakur's captain and a co-director of Limar Fishing.

"They had no right to do that," Mr. Forsey said Tuesday. "They knew
our lives were at stake."

Mr. Stirling's past includes a five-year sentence for importing
cocaine in 1989. In 2001 he was stopped by U.S. authorities while
captaining another ship carrying $330 million in cocaine, according to
The Road to Hell, a 2004 bestseller about the Hells Angels written by
Julian Sher and William Marsden.

Unfortunately for Mr. Forsey, he knew nothing of Mr. Stirling's
criminal past when he met the captain after seeing the job posting
last November.

"He was like a normal captain," he said.

Another of the duped Nova Scotians, Winston Childs, who also doesn't
give out his address or phone number, said he had heard tuna fishers
made good money and he believed he would be getting a good job.

Initially, the crew spent about six weeks fixing the boat -- unpaid
labour -- and set out on Dec. 31.

The British Columbians started insulting their Newfoundland heritage
and telling them bad things about one another, which Mr. Childs thinks
was meant to keep them from getting close.

"Everybody seemed to be against each other," he said.

Mr. Forsey said they travelled without a radio and almost got hit by a
supertanker. Other oddities involved the open use of drugs and the
captain's inability to set up fishing gear or restart the autopilot.

But that didn't compare to what happened on the fifth or sixth day
out.

The men heard they had to learn how to defend the ship from
pirates.

"They started bringing out these automatic weapons and handguns," Mr.
Forsey said.

Some buoys were tied to ropes and thrown overboard and they took
target practice, even using machine-guns.

"Shoot and ask questions later," he said they were
told.

At one point, Mr. Forsey took some pictures of the weapons with his
cellphone camera.

Mr. Childs, who now fishes out of Pubnico, said the Nova Scotians
wanted to get off the ship then, but had another 10 days or so before
reaching Trinidad. He said one of the ship's bosses started drinking
one night and told them they'd all be killed.

One night when Mr. Forsey was on guard, he spotted a ship within three
kilometres and, following orders, woke the captain, who had him alert
the crew.

"All of a sudden," he said, "there were night-vision goggles out,
machine-guns, handguns."

As they got closer to Trinidad and Tobago, one of the target shooting
sessions turned scary when one of the captain's men held a loaded
handgun with a silencer to Mr. Forsey's and Mr. Child's foreheads.

"Don't be screwing up this mission," Mr. Forsey said he was
told.

The boat didn't dock in Trinidad but moored offshore and the sailors
ferried back and forth to a marina from there.

Over the next few days, the Nova Scotians used lies and other trickery
to get ashore and contacted the Canadian High Commission. At one
point, the Nova Scotians hosted a brunch on the Bakur and invited
captains from other docked ships. One of those captains later ended up
hiding three of them in his bathroom for at least a night.

One morning, while the captain and his men searched for his missing
sailors, three of them left the marina in a taxi headed for the high
commission. They arrived there in tears and were met by Trinidadian
police and an RCMP drug enforcement officer.

With about 25 cops escorting them, they returned to the Bakur on a
Trinidadian coast guard ship, but no guns and no drugs were found. A
nearby ship was searched with no luck. The four Nova Scotians were
taken back to the embassy and questioned again.

That's when Mr. Forsey remembered his cellphone photographs.

Police took the camera, downloaded the pictures and, before long,
arrangements were made to fly the four men back to Nova Scotia.
Foreign Affairs spokesman Rejean Beaulieu confirmed that the agency
helped the men, but he wouldn't say how.

The four were met by an RCMP drug enforcement officer at Halifax
International Airport.

"We went and told our story," Mr. Forsey said.

Capt. Stirling and the Bakur were allowed to leave Trinidad. They went
through the Panama Canal and were arrested off the British Columbia
coast in May. According to a story in the Victoria Times Colonist,
police laid drug smuggling charges against British Columbians Philip
Stirling, 52, his Limar co-director Ralph Harris, 66, and John Edward
Corbin, 46, as well as Sean Cochrane, 36, of Alberta and Walberto
Armenta-Ruelas, 40, of Mexico.

Mr. Forsey filed for employment insurance shortly after getting home
and asked an employment insurance employee if his former employer
would see the file. He said the woman working on his case told him,
""This is only for our computers, our system."

She worked on his case for months and knew he wanted his personal
information out of Mr. Stirling's reach, he said. Mr. Forsey heard his
file was approved about four months later. But the process has been
delayed and three weeks ago, he heard Mr. Stirling appealed the claim
and Human Resources sent a copy of the file to him in B.C.

Kate Cloppenburg, a Service Canada spokeswoman for employment
insurance issues in Nova Scotia, wouldn't discuss Mr. Forsey's case
specifically. But she said, in general, employers are considered
interested parties whenever a worker quits or is fired, and can appeal
and get such documentation.

However, she said claimants like Mr. Forsey can ask to protect their
privacy, and information about that process is included in letters
containing decisions about their cases.

"We always send an attachment that talks about the right of appeal. .
. . On the website it specifically identifies the situation where the
employers get a copy of the appeal docket."

That argument doesn't sit well with Mr. Forsey, who said he learned of
the appeal and the fact Mr. Stirling got his private information on
the same day.

"Bang, it was there," he said. "There was no warning about the appeal
or nothing asking us about privacy. It's their people's fault."

He said he now sleeps on a couch with a knife by his side and tries to
stay hidden.

"I've got to go and change my name now. I've got to change my life
because of the government."

Mr. Forsey also feels Human Resources let him down because officials
there led him to Mr. Stirling.

A Service Canada spokesman said the department does not conduct
background searches of potential employers, but takes some safeguards
that include verifying phone numbers, checking business numbers and
e-mail addresses, and ensuring employment standards are met.

Sgt. Gord Mooney of the Vancouver RCMP drug section doesn't think Mr.
Forsey or the others are in any danger.

"There is nothing to indicate that he should fear any harm from Mr.
Stirling," he said Wednesday. "This thing is before the courts. . . .
I really don't want to comment much more than that."