DRUG-SMUGGLING GANGS HIGH ON HELICOPTERS

Big Payoffs Tempt Young Trainee Pilots To Make Cross-border
Trips

A $50,000 payday looked easy for 29-year-old Jeremy Snow. With some
helicopter training in his past, the man from Kelowna was recruited to
fly payloads of B.C. marijuana into the United States and hook up with
a cocaine connection for the return trip to Canada.

He never got his money.

Shortly after taking off from Kelowna's Okanagan Mountain Helicopters
without a licence, Snow was arrested when he touched down in a forest
landing pad in northern Idaho with 80 kilograms of marijuana on board.

He was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Seattle earlier this month
to just under four years in jail for his part in a cross-border
drug-smuggling ring.

His case highlights a problem that has U.S. authorities
worried.

Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office, says a
report was filed into the case record detailing the ease with which
B.C. pilots are trained for drug-smuggling runs.

Helicopter flight-school operators don't check students' backgrounds,
and criminal-record checks are not required for licence approval.

Smuggling by chopper is a "very serious" border-integrity and
public-safety issue, Langlie said. "We've seen a lot of smuggling by
air from Canada into the U.S."

Sometimes the pilot trainees drop out of pilot school once they know
just enough to handle the machine.

Johannes Vates, chief flight instructor at Okanagan Mountain
Helicopters, said Snow raised no suspicions, even when he dropped out
several weeks before completing his four-month basic-training course.
"He was quiet and polite," Vates said.

Authorities allege that 24-year-old Sam Lindsay-Brown, another B.C.
pilot, was involved in the same ring as Snow. He was arrested in
February after landing near Spokane, Wash., with a load of marijuana
and ecstasy, according to police.

Four days later, he hung himself in the Spokane County
jail.

Lindsay-Brown started training at Chinook Helicopters in Abbotsford in
December 2007. Like Vates, Chinook Helicopters owner Cathy Press says
little can be done to check on students.

An employee of the school who asked not to be named said: "Sam was
super. None of the other students could believe he was involved in
smuggling."

Michael Chettleburgh, an author and expert on drug crime, said
helicopters are increasingly being used for smuggling by sophisticated
gangs that are flush with cash from a $6-billion to $8-billion annual
cash crop of B.C. bud, which is traded for cocaine, heroin and guns.

"The helicopter is a growing tool for gangs," Chettleburgh
said.

"We're standing there with our pants around our ankles saying, 'We'd
better get some more regulations.' It's organized crime versus
disorganized police and authorities like Transport Canada."

There is a strong appetite for B.C. bud in the U.S., said RCMP Cpl.
Richard De Jong, adding that grow-ops "continue to be the No. 1 source
of income for organized crime" in B.C.

Chettleburgh said choppers are perfect for dropping into
"off-the-beaten-track" marijuana grow-ops and drug labs before nipping
across to the U.S. and back.

Chettleburgh noted the chopper is not just a cross-border tool for
gangs. Crime groups are increasingly accessing northern B.C.
communities by air, and trying to cultivate more domestic customers
outside the Lower Mainland.

"If you are getting into remote communities, nothing is as effective
as a helicopter," he said.

The Chinook Helicopters employee said students, mostly males aged 20
to 30, are warned not to get sucked into the "easy money" of
drug-smuggling schemes. She said it's well known in the flight-school
community that the eldest of the famous Bacon-gang brothers, Jonathan,
was trained at B.C. Helicopters in Langley.

"Transport Canada works with the RCMP when it suspects that aircraft
are being used in criminal activities," said spokesman Rod Nelson.

"If any violations are found, we can order immediate corrective action
or take appropriate punitive actions."

But he conceded: "Having a clean criminal record is not a requirement
for obtaining a pilot's licence."