POLICE POSE AS DRUG DEALERS IN COCAINE STING

In the largest case of its kind in Canada, RCMP officers working under
controversial new regulations that allow police to pose as drug dealers
charged three men with conspiracy to traffic in cocaine and seized $1.2
million in cash.

Police described the men arrested Thursday night in Richmond as associates
of a local motorcycle gang. On Friday police showed the media large stacks
of seized $20, $50 and $100 bills.

The "reverse sting" investigation -- in which undercover officers arranged
a meeting in Richmond with suspects they had learned were in the market for
50 kilograms of cocaine -- was made possible by a change in police
enforcement regulations by the federal justice department last year. That
change effectively lets officers break drug laws if they are investigating
a crime.

RCMP spokesman Sergeant Russ Grabb was blunt in describing the impact of
the new rules: "We have done reverse stings before, but they have been
ruled illegal by the courts. . . . Police are now allowed to engage in what
would otherwise be, technically, an unlawful act -- drug trafficking -- in
order to collect evidence."

As recently as this June, several charges were stayed against admitted
marijuana dealer Frederick Creswell after B.C. Supreme Court Justice Mary
Humphries ruled a money-laundering sting, in which RCMP officers operated a
currency exchange, was an illegal act. The Crown is appealing the verdict.

The police enforcement regulations, which came into force on May 15, 1997,
specifically mention, in an attached analysis, that problems in previous
court cases "accentuated the need for legislation to provide explicit
authority for police to engage in conduct that might otherwise be illegal."

John Conroy, the Abbotsford lawyer who represents Creswell, said the
regulations give police wide latitude to engage in criminal activity.
"They're exempted from all the [drug] offences. They can grow it, traffic
it, cultivate it and produce it -- everything you can think of. . . . It
frightens me."

Grabb said "no cocaine was actually delivered to the suspects in this case"
and that it is RCMP policy not to add drugs into the system.

Sergeant Chuck Doucette of the force's drug awareness program, would only
say that selling drugs is "something we would not do if we could avoid it."

Because the new police powers fall under justice department regulations,
not legislation, they were not debated in Parliament. A justice department
librarian in Vancouver had trouble even finding a copy of them, noting
press releases aren't usually sent out on these types of changes.

"The bureaucrats in Ottawa brought forward the amendments," Conroy said. "I
doubt very much that there was much public debate."

For their part, police argue the new rules are an essential tool in the
fight against drugs. "Historically, we've posed as drug purchasers," Grabb
said, and dealers are the lowest rung in criminal organizations.

The best way to destabilize criminal groups is to take out the leaders, he
said. And while drug bosses leave the selling of small amounts of drugs to
others, they take a more active interest in a million dollars' worth of
cocaine.

But while police say the new rules let them catch the big fish, Conroy
argues it allows them to catch small fry, too. The new powers provide no
restriction on how big the case needs to be, he said, so police could
theoretically use the rules to entrap individuals buying drugs for
recreational use.

Grabb said the RCMP has no interest in targeting individuals. "Our mandate
is to target high-level drug dealers and organized crime only."

Another recent change to the Controlled Drug and Substances Act was
legislation allowing police to seize the "proceeds of crime," such as the
money and property of drug dealers, to put those proceeds into law
enforcement funds.

The money seized this week will not go into police coffers -- because every
last bill is evidence of the crime itself -- until a judge rules what to do
with it.

The arrest was the result of a 10-month undercover operation that involved
more than 40 officers.

Those facing charges are: John Terzakis, 30, of Vancouver, Greg James
Hinchcliffe, 33, of Ridge Meadows and Sidney Gordon Dallas, 40, of Surrey.