FEW HURDLES FOR CANADA SMUGGLERS TO GET CHOPPERS

MALAKWA, British Columbia -- Colin Martin was on bail, appealing his
sentence for leading a U.S.-Canada drug conspiracy involving aircraft.
But he was still able to obtain three helicopters, two of which ended
up being flown by drug smugglers.

His case illustrates the remarkable ease with which smugglers have
obtained flight training and helicopters as they grab a share of
Canada's sprawling, multibillion-dollar trade in marijuana, cocaine
and MDMA, or Ecstasy.

Of about 10 pilots arrested in roundups of British Columbia-based
helicopter smuggling operations this decade, at least half had
recently trained at flight schools, sometimes dropping out once they
knew just enough to handle the machine, an Associated Press review
found.

Flight school operators say they don't check a student's background or
monitor what students do on their own time, though they generally do
ask why a student wants to become a pilot. Several said they don't
want to train smugglers, but they also don't want to turn away
business simply because a prospective student might be heavily
tattooed or pay in cash.

"I don't think there's anything we can do," said Chinook Helicopters
owner Cathy Press, who has seen several former students arrested for
smuggling. "If you went and thought everyone was drug-running, you
could tell the police, but maybe you're wrong - and that's not great
for business."

Even if her suspicions were correct, she added, "They might put
someone in jail, but someone else will step forward, so why get in the
middle of it?"

A clean criminal record is not a prerequisite for a pilot's license,
said Rod Nelson, a spokesman for Transport Canada, the government
agency that oversees the aviation industry. Nor do Canadian officials
ask students to disclose previous convictions. They do ask about any
substance abuse in an applicant's past.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration takes a similar approach,
asking flight students to disclose previous convictions and requiring
background checks only of foreign students, spokesman Paul Turk said.

Sam Lindsay-Brown was a clean-cut, friendly 23-year-old when he showed
up at Chinook Helicopters in Abbotsford to begin flight training in
December 2007. He was also a drug smuggler. And for almost a year
after Canadian police began investigating him, he remained enrolled,
essentially working his way through flight school as a co-pilot on
cross-border drug flights.

U.S. agents arrested Lindsay-Brown in February as he put his training
to use by making a 426-pound marijuana drop in northeastern Washington
state with one of Martin's leased helicopters. He committed suicide in
jail four days later.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Transport Canada note that they
can't bar people from studying as a pilot or obtaining a license
without proof of criminal activity.

"The guy's 20-some-odd years of age, and he's gaining qualifications
that can be used for a lawful purpose," said RCMP Cpl. Dan Moskaluk.
"It's a tragedy that he chose to get involved in this line of
business, instead of pursuing the lawful side of the skills he was
acquiring."

The RCMP declined to say whether agents were aware he had been
enrolled at flight school. They had been investigating him since
spring 2008, after a woman he hired to transport 200,000 tabs of
Ecstasy was arrested in California and gave his name to police.

RCMP spokesman Norm Massie said the agency had no record of
Lindsay-Brown making prior smuggling flights, but two coconspirators
confirmed to the AP that Lindsay-Brown had made several as a co-pilot,
meaning he would be paid at least $5,000 to help load and unload
contraband and keep an eye out for trouble.

The coconspirators spoke on the condition of anonymity because of
their own involvement in criminal activity and fear that they could
face repercussions from other drug traffickers for speaking with a
reporter.

Massie declined to discuss what steps the RCMP takes to monitor flight
schools, but said the agency knows that some traffickers get training
there.

"We would be remiss not to include that in our investigative
techniques," Massie said.

Martin, 37, was sentenced in 2007 in Canada to 2 1/2 years in prison
for leading a major drug-smuggling operation in the 1990s, one that
started using an airplane after ground couriers were caught.

He said he became involved in drug trafficking about 16 years ago and
remains well connected in the smuggling world, though he declined to
discuss specifics; he was arrested but has not been charged in
Lindsay-Brown's case. In interviews with the AP, he estimated that as
many as 30 pilots across Canada make drug-smuggling flights at least
occasionally.

Someone looking to hire a pilot can put the word out via Blackberry
and hear from pilots as far away as Quebec or Australia by the end of
the day, Martin said.

In dozens of interviews with smugglers, pilots, lawyers, Canadian and
U.S. authorities, and operators of flight schools and helicopter
companies, a snapshot of the highly specialized profession emerged.

Some drug-running pilots are highly experienced. Some do it full-time,
and some do it on the side when legitimate business gets slow or
unexpected expenses such as helicopter damage leave them struggling to
pay the bills. Some enjoy the rush. Some have a thing for getting
America high. They all like the money.

One, Shane Menzel, told a federal judge in Seattle that he turned to
smuggling because it was so hard to find work as an inexperienced
pilot. Many "low-time" pilots must work for years washing helicopters
and cleaning out hangars before they get a real flying job.

People familiar with British Columbia's marijuana trade have estimated
that anywhere from 30,000 to more than 80,000 pounds of pot per month
is smuggled into the United States.

It's a huge business, infusing billions of dollars a year into the
province's economy. The province's most prominent gangs - the Hells
Angels, the United Nations, the Independent Soldiers - are believed to
own most of the drugs moved across the border, but to avoid heat they
leave the shipping to others.

Air transport is generally considered the best way to exploit the
vast, unpopulated terrain along the border.

Planes can fly faster and farther than helicopters, but need
airstrips. Helicopters can skim treetops - flying as close as three
feet - to avoid radar detection. They can dart through low mountain
passes or river valleys and land at a remote clearing or even a wide
spot in a logging road, where they're met by GPS-equipped drivers.
They're back across the Canadian border in minutes.

Often, no cash crosses the border, because it might be seized or
difficult to exchange, Martin said.

Instead, whoever moves the marijuana or Ecstasy south gives the profit
to a U.S.-based cocaine trafficker. That trafficker instructs a
contact north of the border to pay the Canada-based owner of the
marijuana or Ecstasy.

The cocaine trafficker then takes the proceeds from the marijuana to
buy cocaine to be shipped north into Canada, where the transaction
happens again in reverse.

A helicopter smuggling operation charges about $350-$550 per pound to
fly marijuana south of the border, and $1,500-$1,800 per kilogram to
bring cocaine back.

Such an operation, of course, needs helicopters. In Canada, it is
difficult to lease a helicopter without an operating certificate, a
Transport Canada document that allows someone to use a helicopter for
commercial purposes. Such a document is a sign of legitimacy to
leasing companies, who typically want to know what their machines are
being used for.

But there are ways around that hurdle.

Many smugglers instead simply buy helicopters, registering them to
"numbered" companies - 123456789 Ltd., for example. There are 90
helicopters registered for private use to such companies across
Canada, Transport Canada records show.

In other cases, smugglers have paid third parties to register the
machines for them, or they're not registered at all. One unregistered
helicopter with the tail mark C-FTCH has been used in smuggling runs
and recently was parked deep in the woods near Cranbrook, in the
mountains of southeastern British Columbia, three people with
knowledge of the machine told the AP.

Martin bought the first helicopter he acquired in 2007, sight-unseen,
for $925,000 from an owner in Texas. No conditions of his bail
prohibited him from possessing aircraft. Massie declined to discuss
Martin's case, but said generally: "Should those conditions be in
place? Absolutely."

The helicopter was eventually repossessed when he couldn't afford more
than $1 million in repairs. Meanwhile, Martin tried to lease another
helicopter through Gorge Timber, a company registered in his wife's
name. The helicopter was a Eurocopter EC-120 put up for lease by a
British Columbia company called Vertical Solutions, run by Kevin
McCart. Martin said he didn't think he'd be able to get the lease
without an operating certificate, but a Calgary city police aircraft
engineer, Greg Solar, who had helped him repair his first chopper, had
a connection.

"I thought, 'We're a little company, we don't have the best books,'"
Martin said. "And all of a sudden Greg's saying, 'I know Kevin McCart.
I'll put in a good word for you guys.'"

Solar and McCart declined to speak with the AP, but Martin said he
leased the EC-120 for $30,000 U.S. a month, including insurance and
maintenance. He had it for about nine months, until last fall, when
the owner took it back because uninsured pilots had been flying it.
The helicopter was used in cross-border drug flights, Lindsay-Brown's
coconspirators told the AP.

Early this year, Martin used Gorge to lease another machine - the Bell
206 Jet Ranger that Lindsay-Brown was arrested in - from Eagle Copters
of Calgary, one of Canada's most prominent helicopter companies.

Mike O'Reilly, Eagle's president, did not return repeated calls from
the AP.

"Sure, I have a past, but those charges were a decade ago," Martin
said. "If you have the money and you want to get into a helicopter
business, you can - doesn't matter who that individual is."

On Feb. 23, the day of his arrest, Lindsay-Brown climbed into the Jet
Ranger at Martin's shop and flew it to a snowy clearing outside Ione,
Wash. He was to drop off 426 pounds of marijuana and pick up 83 kilos
of cocaine, authorities said.

But the driver he was meeting, Len Ferris, had been arrested in Utah
with the cocaine. For more than a day, Ferris did not return
Blackberry messages from Sean Doak, a recently paroled drug trafficker
who was his contact on the Canadian side of the border, Martin said he
later learned from Adam Serrano, another man arrested in the case.

That was a clear sign of trouble, but Doak never told Lindsay-Brown
about it, and Lindsay-Brown had no clue he was flying into a setup,
Martin said.

U.S. agents greeted him with guns drawn.

Martin reported the helicopter stolen. The DEA said it didn't believe
him and returned the machine to Eagle Copters.

The following week, another pilot flew down to meet Ferris - with
predictable results. This time, it was Jeremy Snow, who recently had
done flight training at Okanagan Mountain Helicopters in Kelowna. He
was arrested as he landed in Idaho, pleaded guilty in U.S. District
Court in Seattle and is expected to face four years in prison.