BOAT SEEN AS DRUG CARRIER

RCMP Expecting To Find 'Fairly Large' Stash Aboard Fishing Vessel
Seized This Week

VICTORIA -- The RCMP say they expect to find a big stash of drugs as
they carefully comb through a large fishing vessel seized off Vancouver Island.

The 47-metre fishing boat was towed Tuesday to a secure facility at
the Esquimalt dockyard, just outside Victoria, where officers wearing
breathing equipment were searching the interior of the Bakur.

"Clearly, when you use a vessel of that size, you're going to be
talking large quantities," Inspector Paul Nadeau said yesterday.

Police have not said what type of drugs are involved.

"I won't speculate as to how much is on board. . . .," Insp. Nadeau
said. "But you know, it's a fairly sophisticated operation. When
you're resorting to that mode of transportation and you're travelling
those sorts of distances, we're expecting it to be a fairly large
amount of drugs."

The vessel was seized in the early morning hours of Tuesday off
Ucluelet on Vancouver Island.

Police had been tracking the Bakur since it left Halifax in December
as it travelled down the East Coast, through the Panama Canal, then
up the West Coast to Canada.

Insp. Nadeau said the search of the Bakur could take "quite a while."

Five men were charged with drug-trafficking offences, including
Phillip Stirling, 52, of Chase, B.C., and Ralph Harris, 66, of Ladysmith, B.C.

The two are listed as directors of the Kamloops-based company that
owns the Bakur, according to a corporate summary provided by the
provincial Ministry of Finance.

Also charged Tuesday were Walberto Armenta-Ruelas, 40, of Sonora,
Mexico; Sean Cochrane, 36, of Wanham, Alta., and John Corbin, 46, of
Chase, B.C.

Insp. Nadeau said Mr. Stirling was questioned, but never charged, in
a massive cocaine seizure in 2001 in U.S. waters.

The Canadian-registered Western Wind was carrying 2,500 kilograms of
cocaine, making it the largest seizure of cocaine in the Pacific
Northwest at the time, police said.

"He was never charged. It was done in the United States. But he
certainly has been arrested and charged in this case," Insp. Nadeau said.