DRUG TUNNELLERS GET 9 YEARS IN US PRISON

The three Surrey men who dug a drug smuggling tunnel beneath the
Canada-U.S. border have been sentenced to nine years in jail in the U.S.

Francis Devandra Raj, 30, Timothy Woo, 43, and Johnathan Valenzuela,
27, appeared before U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenou in
Seattle Friday morning.

"This is not a good way to make money," Judge Coughenou said, after
observing he had the impression Canadians tend to view
marijuana-related crimes in a less serious light than Americans.

Their lawyers said the trio are hoping to serve their sentences in a
Canadian jail.

The Surrey men were arrested by American authorities as they emerged
from the tunnel on the U.S. side of the border in July 2005 carrying
200 pounds of B.C. bud.

The tunnel was dug by hand over eight months and stretched more than
350 feet underneath 0 Avenue from a Quonset hut on the Canadian side
to a farmhouse in Lynden, Washington.

The tunnel ceiling and walls were braced with wood planks. It was
also ventilated and wired for electric lights and a sump pump to remove water.

Users of the tunnel would be charged $500 a pound to ship pot, or
ecstasy, into the U.S. and the tunnel operators said they could move
300 pounds (138 kg) at a time.

Raj, Woo and Valenzuela apologized to the court, the U.S. and their
families at the sentencing hearing.

Raj said the tunnel was not meant to be a "long-term thing."

Woo expressed regrets to the "the people of America" and his
relatives, and Valenzuela said he was a drug addict who has benefited
from his incarceration.

Investigators with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) are
still looking for the money behind the tunnel, because Raj, the owner
of the Canadian property, did not appear to have the resources to
fund the purchase and construction on his own.

Assistant United States District Attorney Jill Otake said rumours of
the tunnel, the first of its kind under the B.C.-Washington State
border, had created "something of an excitement" among Canadian drug dealers.

"The conspiracy isn't so much what they did as what they intended,"
Otake said, because the tunnel would have been used to funnel untold
amounts of illegal drugs into the U.S.

It was revealed in court that the conspirators were considering
"flipping" the tunnel once it was in operation by selling it to other
criminals as a turnkey operation for several million dollars.

After the bust, Langley Township sealed the Canadian side of the
tunnel with cement and foam at a cost of $35,000. The Township has
since recovered those costs through the sale of the Aldergrove
acreage, under federal proceeds of crime legislation.

- - with files from CTV News