B.C. BUD'S SINISTER ROLE IN THE VIOLENT DRUG TRADE

Marijuana Grown In Countless Grow-Ops Across The Province Goes South
In Exchange For Cash And Cocaine From South America

VANCOUVER -- Chadrick John Derbyshire's job seemed innocuous enough.

He would go to a parking lot in Aldergrove, B.C., a semi-rural
community about an hour outside Vancouver, to pick up a white Dodge
van with "New Life Worship Ministries" painted across its hood.

He would drive the van across the Canada-U.S. border and park it for
about two hours in the lot of the Sonlight Christian Reformed Church
in the U.S. border town of Lynden, Wash. He would then drive the van
back into Canada, drop it off where he picked it up, and leave.

The next day, Mr. Derbyshire would return to the Aldergrove parking
lot in his own car. He would leave it unlocked and go find something
to eat. When he returned, his car would be locked and a box with
$5,000 in cash would be inside.

Mr. Derbyshire, now 36, was unemployed at the time he was offered the
job as a courier for a drug-trafficking organization. He had
previously worked as an operations manager with a B.C.
waste-management company and at various construction jobs. He knew he
was taking illegal drugs across the border, he told a U.S. court
before he was sentenced to one year plus a day in jail two years ago.

But the job was easy money and did not seem like a big deal.

In reality, Mr. Derbyshire was an integral part of the uncontrolled
multibillion-dollar drug trade on the West Coast. The trade links the
production of marijuana in countless grow-ops across the province to
cocaine and other drugs on urban streets, the increase in handguns in
B.C., the bloody Mexican drug wars, and the frightening rise in
violent gangland-style killings in the Vancouver area.

Law-enforcement and legal authorities say they suspect locally grown
marijuana - B.C. bud - is sent south almost every day of the year in
exchange for U.S. currency, guns and cocaine from South America. The
cocaine travels mostly through Mexico and then north to Washington
state, where a large number of Mexican drug-trafficking organizations
have been reported to operate.

Mr. Derbyshire was stopped at the Canada-U.S. border by a suspicious
U.S. Customs guard, who heard a dull noise in response to a knock on
the side of his van. A subsequent search turned up cocaine in 79
plastic-wrapped packages, with a street value of $2-million (U.S.).

The arrest of Mr. Derbyshire in 2005 was one of the first big drug
seizures in a series of busts related to a vast drug-trafficking
organization that has led so far to 45 indictments, Seattle lawyer
Terrence Kellogg said in an interview this week.

U.S. attorneys have said a four-year investigation into a
drug-smuggling ring that netted Mr. Kellogg's client, Robert Shannon,
was one of the largest and most successful in the history of federal
prosecution in the Western District of Washington. "The size and
influence of the organization was staggering," attorneys Jeffrey
Sullivan and Adam Cornell told the U.S. District Court in Seattle
earlier this month.

The investigation led to the seizure of B.C. marijuana going south
and cocaine going north with a combined, estimated street value of
$30-million (U.S.). American agents also seized about $3.5-million in
U.S. currency.

Earlier this week, authorities announced the arrest of nine people,
including eight Canadians who were part of a cross-border smuggling
operation that relied on helicopters. Police said they seized
marijuana, cocaine and ecstasy pills estimated to be worth more than
$14-million (U.S.).

The drug trade is constantly coming up with creative ways to smuggle
drugs across the Canada-U.S. border.

Drugs seized during the four-year investigation were taken across
inside hollowed-out logs, in tent trailers, within false walls of
cargo containers and vehicles, within loads of commercial lumber,
fibreglass and beauty bark, inside large PVC pipes, within the
interior of a propane tanker, a church van, a motor home and by foot.
A few years ago, smugglers dug a tunnel under the border.

B.C. bud's role

Recent court cases involving Canadians convicted in the U.S. offer a
glimpse into B.C. bud's part in the violent global drug trade.

Mr. Shannon was sentenced earlier this month to 20 years in a U.S.
prison after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine
and marijuana, and conspiracy to engage in money laundering. He "was
an undisputed leader of the conspiracy who, from Canada, directed the
planning and execution of his narcotics smuggling operation and
reaped massive profits for his efforts," the prosecution team told the court.

Mr. Shannon oversaw the daily operations of the North American
narcotics transportation network, assuring speedy and efficient
movement of drugs and currency across international borders, the U.S.
attorneys said. While he was not a violent person, they said, he
associated with members of the Hells Angels. On at least one
occasion, he sought out a gang member to serve as muscle to settle a
dispute over payment for a load of marijuana. Also, Mr. Shannon was
once the victim of a kidnapping and was released after the payment of
$100,000, they said.

One of Mr. Shannon's co-conspirators, who also pleaded guilty to
conspiracy to distribute cocaine and marijuana, and conspiracy to
engage in money laundering, was Devron Quast, a former general
manager of a Hyundai dealership in Abbotsford, B.C. Among Mr. Quast's
roles was to provide insurance to customers in Canada "to guarantee
them a return on their investment in marijuana if a load of narcotics
was seized by law enforcement," stated the indictment originally
filed in the case against Mr. Shannon, Mr. Quast and others.
Typically, Mr. Quast would charge $425 per pound of marijuana to
insure delivery into the United States.

A federal grand jury indictment against Mr. Quast and others
identified a Canadian company that was established to provide
brokerage documentation to facilitate movement across the border; a
trucking company that was to arrange for the transport of pot over
the line; the person who acquired the containers and trailers to move
the marijuana; and the warehouse operator who stored the drugs in
Washington state.

The indictment revealed that investigators had tracked the movement
of 295 kilograms of B.C. bud to New York, naming the driver who took
the drugs in a U-Haul trailer across the country and the person who
received and paid for the drugs. The truck driver was stopped in
Wyoming while he was on his trip back to the West Coast.
Law-enforcement officers found $3,322,210 (U.S.) in cash in the truck.

Mr. Kellogg, the defence lawyer, had told the court Mr. Shannon was
not a leader in the drug trade. "Those involved in this conspiracy
were not the highest levels of involvement: not the owners,
manufacturers, producers nor distributors of the marijuana but simply
those charged with the transportation," he said.

Mr. Kellogg said his client was no more responsible for smuggling
marijuana than many others who will never be arrested.

"It is estimated that the propagation of marijuana in B.C. represents
5 per cent of that province's gross domestic product," he said. "It
is reported that 100,000 people in B.C. are involved in the
propagation of marijuana, almost twice the number involved in the
manufacturing sector in that province."

Smuggling by kayak

Albertan David Sidwell took an innovative approach to smuggling drugs
- - and paid the price for it.

Mr. Sidwell, who worked on oil rigs for years, is scheduled to be
sentenced on May 5, following a guilty plea for his role in having
1,000 or more kilograms of marijuana sent into the United States
between May, 2002, and April, 2004, and bringing $184,570 (U.S.) in
cash back to Canada in February, 2003.

Mr. Sidwell's scheme involved smuggling B.C. bud into the U.S. by
kayak, according to a statement of the case submitted last year by
U.S. attorneys to the U.S. District Court in Spokane, Wash. He would
pick up the marijuana that had been floated into the U.S. and take it
in large hockey-style duffle bags.

The cash received for the pot was bundled in $5,000 stacks of $20
bills and put in plastic bags. The bags were placed inside small gym
bags that were then wrapped in fibreglass tape. Initially, the
trafficking organization used a rented private plane from Portland to
fly the cash over the border. The bags of money would be dropped out
of the window as the aircraft circled above a remote property next to
the Kettle River in southeastern B.C., prosecutors told the court.

But Mr. Sidwell and a co-conspirator thought the rented plane was too
expensive and, after three or four flights, they decided to use the
river to send the cash back into Canada.

Mr. Sidwell was also linked to a member of the Mission, B.C., chapter
of the Hells Angels who was a supplier and broker for the smugglers.
Mr. Sidwell and others were told that the gang member was capable of
supplying any quantity of marijuana they required or requested, the
court was told.

Seattle lawyer John Browne, who represented Mr. Sidwell in court,
said in an interview this week that his client played a minor role in
the drug trade.

"He was just a guy who floated some marijuana down the river," Mr.
Browne said. "He made some mistakes, but he's just a hard-working,
middle-class guy."

'GRAMMA' UNDER THREAT

The incident sounds more like an episode from The Sopranos than a
real-life event.

U.S. attorneys say Robert Shannon implicitly threatened a
co-defendant, implying "gramma" could face some harm if he
co-operated with the government. Robert Shannon and Devron Quast had
both been arrested in connection with drug trafficking activities.

"So you ready for this next story," Mr. Shannon wrote to Mr. Quast.
"I guess your grandmother's in a home where my sister works. And
guess who's other gramma is in there? The guy that used to visit your
office with the tallest Starbucks who wears the coolest ring," Mr.
Shannon wrote. A U.S. government memo to the court identified "the
guy" as a member of the Hell's Angels.

"I guess your grandmother was talking to his grandmother and
mentioned that you were going to tell the government everything so
you would be home in a few years. So she told her grandson and he
called my sister .

"Please, please, please, what ever you do, keep your mouth closed,"
Mr. Shannon wrote.

"If we tried to help ourselves, its our families that our [sic] at
risk. ... I couldn't live with myself if something happened to my
family cause of my choices. I will not run the risk of something
happening to them !!!* " Mr. Shannon wrote.

The letter was undated and unsigned. U.S. Attorneys Jeffrey Sullivan
and Adam Cornell told the court that the letters were from Mr.
Shannon to Mr. Quast.

ONE MAN'S ORIGIN

Canadian Robert Shannon explained how he fell into the drug trade
during a submission to a U.S. court last month, shortly before he
received a 20-year sentence for his role in a massive drug
trafficking operation.

"I would like you to understand i blame no friends, family or others
for why i stand before you today. i come from a very positive family
life, where morals and church were a big part of my upbringing," he
stated in a letter to the court written as if he was texting.

His school life was normal, filled with sports activities that he
enjoyed. He did not excel at or enjoy the academic side of school,
but was never a problem student. "I not once tried drugs of any kind
or even smoked cigarettes," he wrote.

Mr. Shannon dropped out of school before completing Grade 12. He
operated a skate shop in Brandon, Man., with a best friend before
moving to B.C. to be with his biological father, who he had seen
infrequently while growing up. His father was a long-distance truck
driver. At the age of 21, Mr. Shannon got his truck driving licence
and spent the next 12 years in a highway truck. Then he quit his job,
broke up with his girlfriend and started hanging out with a friend he
met at the pool hall. He began drinking, trying drugs, getting
tattoos and spending time in strip bars.

New experiences drew him in and then commitments kept him there, he
said, adding that he was involved in illegal activities for six
years. "Things happen so slow, you don't see the problem growing," he
wrote. "The last 2-3 years were full of fears and problems i could
never seem to fix . . . . it forces you to take risks that you know
will be the end of it all, cause your [sic] so far from digging
yourself out of the hole you have put yourself in."

He felt like the weight of the world was lifted off his shoulders on
the day he was arrested, he told the court. "Now this dead end road I
was driving down had finally come to the end. . . now, i can rebuild
on really who I am for those first 32 years of my life."

The concentration of Mexican drug trafficking organizations just
south of the border may be contributing to the rise in violent
gangland-style killings in the Vancouver area.

WORLD CANNABIS USE, 2006

Asia: 31%

Africa: 25%

Americas: 24%

Europe: 18%

Oceana: 2%

TRISH McALASTER, KATHRYN TAM / THE GLOBE AND MAIL SOURCES: UNITED
NATIONS 2008 WORLD DRUG REPORT, GOOGLEMAPS.COM