NINE GUILTY IN MASSIVE DRUG BUST

Nine people were found guilty on Tuesday of involvement in the biggest
hashish bust in B.C. history.

The nine were captured after mounties stormed a fish boat docked at Fanny
Bay with nearly 10 tonnes of hashish aboard, and captured an additional 2.3
tonnes from a ship at sea.

Seven men were hauling bags of drugs from the fish boat Ansare II to a
waiting truck when police surprised them at 2:10 a.m., Nov. 4, 1998, RCMP
Sgt. Duncan Gray said at the time.

The drugs were packaged in 20-kilogram bags, each containing 20
one-kilogram bricks of hashish.

The raid capped a 16-month investigation involving the RCMP and inter-
national police forces, Canada and U.S. customs, the U.S. Coast Guard and
aircraft stationed at CFB Comox and Greenwood, Nova Scotia.

A few days after the raid in Fanny Bay, police seized the 100-foot Blue
Dawn off the west coast of Vancouver Island and confiscated an additional
2.3 tonnes of hashish.

The Blue Dawn was apparently the "mother ship" from which the Ansare II
un-loaded its cache of drugs.

Vancouver RCMP had begun to investigate a suspected hashish smuggling ring
20 months earlier when the drug section received a tip from police in Halifax.

The Vancouver Island drug section launched a similar investigation in
September 1998, but neither unit realized the investigations were related
until a few weeks before the drugs landed in Fanny Bay, police said.

Police traced the Blue Dawn to a port in Crete and tracked her through
ports in Sri Lanka and Thailand before she sailed for the B.C. coast,
police said.

Five CP-140 Aurora aircraft from CFB Comox kept the Blue Dawn under
surveillance as she approached Vancouver Island, Air Force Capt. David
Krayden said.

The squadron devoted about 300 hours of flying time to the surveillance and
aircraft from the 415 Squadron at Greenwood, N.S. flew about 100 hours.

Five people were tried in Nanaimo in 2000 and handed three to five-year
sentences for possession of hashish for trafficking.

They were initially charged with importation of hashish, but Judge Sidney
Clark dismissed the importation charge because there was no wiretap
evidence of conspiracy.

The five received three to five-year sentences.

The nine people convicted in Vancouver on Tuesday were:

Sanford Hately, captain and owner of the Blue Dawn, Joel Hately,
Sanford's twin brother, guilty of two counts; Kurt Guilbride, guilty
of four counts, Ronald Grant, guilty of one count: Sylvie Goyer,
guilty of one count, Ronald Thomson, guilty of four counts; Richard
Farrington guilty of two counts; Wolfgang Fiznar, guilty of four counts.

Judge Elizabeth Arnold released the nine on bail to await sentencing.