CUSTOMS AGENT PLEADS GUILTY TO MARIJUANA-SMUGGLING CHARGE

A former Canadian customs officer pleaded guilty Monday in a Minnesota
courtroom to attempting to smuggle more than 20 kilograms of marijuana into
the United States last May.

Gary Graboski, a former border inspector with the Canadian Border Services
Agency, will be sentenced Oct. 25 in Roseau County District Court on one
count of first-degree conspiracy to smuggle drugs. He was being held in the
Lake of the Woods County jail in Baudette, Minn., yesterday. The maximum
penalty is 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

Graboski, 35, was arrested in a pickup truck May 13 just south of the tiny
Pinecreek border station. The resident of Emerson, who was off-duty from
his post in Sprague at the time, was stopped by police acting on
information he was smuggling hydroponic marijuana, likely grown in the
Winnipeg area, into the U.S.

Police found 50 pounds of marijuana stuffed in hockey bags in the back of
his truck. Police have said the estimated street value of the pot seized
from Graboski's truck was $4,000 U.S. per pound, totaling about $200,000 U.S.

Investigators then got Graboski -- who has been suspended without pay -- to
wear a hidden "wire" to record his meeting with a contact in the U.S.,
Loran M. Stewart, 37, of Calgary. The men met at a self-service car wash in
Warroad, Minn., and when the marijuana was exchanged, police swept in. Both
men were arrested and their vehicles were seized. Stewart has already been
found guilty of second-degree conspiracy to commit a controlled substance
crime and was sentenced on Sept. 3 to two years and two months in prison.

An official said Graboski's plea applied to two incidents, the attempted
smuggling of marijuana into Roseau last March, and the attempt to deliver
marijuana to Stewart in May.

Police had Graboski under surveillance since May 3, and on May 12 saw him
take possession of three, large black hockey bags and a dark suitcase while
at a car wash in Winnipeg. After his arrest, he admitted bringing another
large shipment across in March and leaving it for three other couriers, who
checked into a Roseau motel and were later caught.

Police in Winnipeg have said they believe an unknown percentage of
marijuana grown in Winnipeg is smuggled into the U.S. About 80 hydroponic
"grow ops" have been discovered in the city since Jan. 1, many in
residential homes in the city's suburbs.

Graboski's plea comes almost a month after a White House report said
Canada's relatively lax penalties for marijuana producers and the proposed
move towards decriminalizing pot could be an "invitation" to organized
crime to smuggle Canadian-grown pot south.