EX-WHISTLER COACH ARRESTED IN 30 YEAR OLD DRUG CASE

He was a winner on the basketball court, was loved by his players and
respected by his rival coaches.

For years Steve Tanaka volunteered his coaching services to high
school girls basketball teams, coaching in Whistler, West Vancouver
and, most recently, Langley.

So it came as a shock when it turned out that the man they knew as
Steve Tanaka was actually Steve Iwami, a fugitive wanted on a cocaine
trafficking conviction 30 years ago in Chicago.

Until his arrest at his Kitsilano home last week, Iwami was head coach
of the Brookswood Bobcats senior girls squad in Langley, a team which
finished second in the B.C. provincial championships last year.

"I was saddened, especially for the girls," said Brookswood principal
Don McBeath. "He was a good coach."

Chelsea McMullan, the daughter of former Langley councillor Heather
McMullan and captain of the Bobcats, was stunned.

"He was an incredible coach. You couldn't ask for a better coach than
Mr. Tanaka. It was devastating for the whole team to have to go
through this. We all loved him."

Iwami, 52, was convicted in July 1972 in U.S. District Court in
Chicago of trafficking in cocaine and sentenced to five years in a
U.S. federal prison.

He remained free on bond while appealing his conviction but, according
to officials, failed to show up and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Federal agents received information he was living in the Netherlands
but before they could move in, he had fled.

His father says that for at least the last 20 years he has been living
in B.C., working on commercial fishing boats in the summer and doing
odd jobs in the winter.

He has a 20-year-old daughter who attended school in Whistler, where
the young woman's mother lives.

Iwami coached the Whistler Storm senior girls basketball team for
three seasons in the late 1990s, once taking the Storm to a
second-place finish in the A provincial playoffs.

U.S. Marshals deputy Randy Scott said on a routine review of the case
last year, a deputy marshal in Las Vegas arrived at the home of
Iwami's relatives and discovered the family had just visited him in
B.C.

Vancouver police Det. Les Yoe said he got a call from the U.S.
Marshals Jan. 2, saying Iwami was living in Vancouver.

Using investigative techniques that he declined to reveal, Yoe traced
Iwami to the home he shares with his daughter in Kitsilano and
arrested him after he returned home at noon last Thursday.

Iwami was turned over to immigration officials, who decided to
fast-track him through the system, handing him across the border to
U.S. Customs the next day.

Iwami's father, Fred Iwami, a resident of Las Vegas, said he spoke to
his son by phone on Friday.

"He didn't sound bitter. He didn't sound like he was all beaten up,"
said Iwami, 81.

"I thought eventually it would come to something like this," he said
of the arrest.