Akali leader linked to Canada drug ring
Fri, December 14 2007
By Mata Press Service
The consignment headed for Canada was estimated to be worth more than one billion rupees (about C$25.5 million).
Police were informed of phone calls from Canada-based suspects who had arranged for the shipment that originated in Hyderabad.
The seizure made in the industrial city if Ludhiana is being linked to an influential leader of Punjab’s Akali party – a religio-political entity mainly concerned with the status of the Sikhs in Punjab.
The drugs were found in a truck belonging to the political leader, who is close to the Punjab Chief Minister and senior police officials.
Police have been tight-lipped about the case, according to local media reports.
Indo-Canadians have become major players in the Indian drug trade of late with several non-resident Indians who live in B.C. and Ontario being arrested.
The Asian Pacific Post reported in last February that a team of Mounties is trying to unravel the inside workings of a massive criminal syndicate operating drug pipelines from India to Canada and the United States.
Working with Indian police, the team is focusing its investigations into the Western connections of three Indo-Canadians, including Gurdish Toor, 29, from Surrey B.C, who were arrested with huge amounts of heroin and party drugs destined for the North American market.
Toor was arrested in Delhi last August in connection with the seizure of 100 kilograms of ephedrine worth C$24 million dollars.
Police also seized three kg of hashish worth 100 million rupees (about C$2.4 million) concealed in a consignment of paintings headed for Canada and about 600 kg of white powdery drugs which have been sent for analysis.
Following his arrest, Indian newspapers have been questioning why Toor, who had been on the police radar for almost two years, was allowed to operate with impunity in the Doaba region of Punjab, where most Indo-Canadian migrants hail from.
Toor operated firms like Golden Shield Private Limited, Simran Rice and Blue Horse Trading Limited in the industrial city of Ludhiana.
These firms were apparently dealing in export of rice and drugs to Canada and the United States. Police described the companies as fronts for the drug cartel.
Toor, police said, lived a lavish life spending up to 50,000 rupees (C$1,100) per day - a fortune in India where the average income is less than $500 a year and had a fleet of luxury cars.
He also built a huge mansion and has amassed unaccounted land and properties, which police believe are the proceeds of crime.
The lanky suspect had also obtained an export license from directorate of foreign trade, even though getting license is very difficult for genuine exporters.
Narcotics agencies say India, wedged between two major drug-producing regions, the Golden Triangle and the Golden Crescent, is a major transit point for drug smuggling to the West where returns are lucrative.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in an analytical report say heroin seizures originating in India have increased dramatically becoming the number one source/transit country to Canada.
India has also emerged as a source country for ketamine and other party drugs smuggled into Canada.
Canada’s reputation in the global drug market also got an unwanted boost this month as police in two other countries announced they had busted international syndicates supplying and getting drugs from this country.
The drug train to and from Canada involved a Filipino street gang in Chicago, suppliers in Toronto’s Chinatown and Canadian couriers who carried their stash to Australia after swallowing cocaine-packed condoms.
The drug networks transcended international borders and cultural gaps.
“From country farms to city high-rises, no community is immune from illegal drugs and the dangers they bring. Illegal drugs, and those who peddle them, do not recognize international, state, county or municipal boundaries,” said U.S. State’s Attorney Joseph E. Birkett.
Birkett was commenting on the take down of an international drug ring that used connections in Chicago’s Chinatown to move massive amounts of the designer drug Ecstasy from suppliers in Canada.
A Filipino faction of the Latin Kings distributed tens of thousands of the Ecstasy pills and marijuana.
“The nationalities of the people involved represented citizens of the United States, Canada, China, South Korea, Germany and the Philippines,” said Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney.
“The good news is that law enforcement is equally adept at looking past cultural borders, gaps and different country names,” he said when announcing drug conspiracy charges against 21 people, including four in Canada. One of the suspects is believed to be a fugitive in the Philippines.
US authorities worked with the RCMP to seize more than 180,000 Ecstasy pills, several thousand marijuana plants and more than US$500,000 in drug proceeds.
In Australia, police said one of the country’s most wanted men and the alleged kingpin of an international drug ring importing cocaine into Australia has been arrested in the Netherlands.
The 40-year-old man, is alleged to be the head of an international drug-smuggling operation spanning three continents, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said.
AFP spokesman Roman Quaedvlieg said it had been a difficult process to track him down.
“He did use a number of aliases and false passports to travel,” he said on ABC radio.
“But with the cooperation of Dutch police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police we were able to pinpoint him in Amsterdam.”
AFP assistant commissioner Roman Quaedvlieg said the syndicate had used an international network of drug couriers and, while the quantities were not large, the shipments were frequent.
“They (the couriers) were ingesting bodily the cocaine between 200 grams to a kilo at a time, using predominantly condom packaging,” Quaedvlieg told reporters in Canberra.
“We believe that the syndicate was using up to three to four couriers per month.”
Canada’s Mounties were also involved in the international investigation because many of the couriers came from Canada.
“The cocaine and other drugs that were sourced by the syndicate were sourced from both South-East Asia and Canada,” Quaedvlieg said.
