REFUGEE CLAIMANT GETS 13 YEARS FOR DRUG DEALING

A Vancouver gangster who claimed refugee status has been sentenced to 13
years in prison for heroin trafficking after his name surfaced during a U.S.
undercover police operation that targeted the drug trade in Boston's
Chinatown.

Vancouver provincial court Judge Eric Bendrodt sentenced Shu Wing Chi to the
stiff term even though the drug dealer pleaded guilty and had spent 13
months in pre-trial custody.

Federal prosecutor John Loo said the sentence should send a clear message
that Canadian courts will not tolerate refugee claimants getting involved in
serious crime.

"It sends a message to these people that if you are going to claim refugee
status -- to ask Canada to welcome you with open arms and protect you from
unfair treatment -- then you can't commit serious crimes. It can't be
condoned."

Chi had been refused refugee status, but filed an appeal after he was
convicted in 1993 of drug trafficking, arguing he would be executed if he
was sent back to China, Loo said.

Chi became the subject of a investigation involving U.S. agents, Vancouver
police and the RCMP investigation after an investigation in Boston by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Agency led to a
dealer named Khin Creng Thong, who, with a Calgary man named Tu Chan Tran,
sold undercover officers about half a kilogram) of 70-per-cent pure heroin
for $65,000 US.

Police later learned the heroin was supplied by Chi to Tran, who carried it
by air from Vancouver to Montreal, then carried it to Boston in a bodypack,
travelling on a tour bus.

Thong and Tran told the undercover agents that next time they would rather
trade heroin for cocaine at an exchange rate of 2.5 kilos of cocaine for
every half-kilo unit of heroin.

With the assistance of Vancouver police and the RCMP, the U.S. agents set up
a meeting in Vancouver, where Tran had a "safe house" to store drugs at 4503
Nanaimo.

Agents met with Tran on Sept. 10 last year at the Clarion Hotel in Burnaby
and later drove to the safe house, where they told Thong and Tran they
wanted to meet their boss to discuss a large shipment -- 10 units of heroin
for 25 kilos of cocaine.

One of the agents was later introduced to Chi and arrangements were made for
the drug deal to be completed in Seattle on Oct. 28, 1997.

Tran was arrested Oct. 28, 1997 in Seattle's Chinatown. Thong was arrested
later at a nearby motel. Chi was arrested in Vancouver getting into his
Lexus parked at the Safeway on Kingsway and Tyne. A square block of heroin
weighing almost a pound was found in his car.

Tran was sentenced in Boston to 11 years in prison. Thong got 12 years.

The U.S.investigation also resulted in three men being charged in Surrey
with conspiracy to commit murder after undercover police were asked to kill
a rival gang member in Calgary. The three men -- one from Vancouver, two
from Calgary -- are still before the courts.

Checked-by: Don Beck