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In what authorities describe as one of many largest drug seizures ever on the Windsor border, a choose on Friday discovered a Brampton trucker responsible of attempting to import nearly 200 kilograms of methamphetamine into Canada.
The illicit cargo, found in containers and totes within the cab of a tractor-trailer on the Ambassador Bridge on Dec. 24, 2019, had a price — relying on mode of sale — of between $4.5 million and $29.4 million, mentioned Superior Courtroom Justice Bruce Thomas.
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Whereas free on bail with out incident the previous 4 years, Mohamed Ahmed Abdirahman, now 40, was instantly remanded into custody after Thomas learn his judgment, pending a sentencing listening to in June.
Convicted of importation of methamphetamine, in addition to of possession for the aim of trafficking, the choose mentioned the married Brampton father of two younger kids “might very nicely face a double-digit penitentiary time period.” Below the Prison Code, the utmost sentence is life in jail.
Whereas the Crown’s case was primarily based on circumstantial proof, the choose described it as “overwhelming.”
A key piece of the prosecution’s case was having the ability to forensically show that the tip of a roll of duct tape discovered close to the driving force within the cab of Abdirahman’s truck matched completely to the tip of a strip of the identical duct tape used to seal one of many 9 containers and plastic totes within the cab that contained 200 packages of 100-per-cent pure meth.
“This was unquestionably an enormous seizure,” federal drug prosecutor Richard Pollock advised the Windsor Star outdoors the courtroom, including that meth is “one of the vital critical medication.”
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The trial heard that Abdirahman, a Canadian citizen born in Somalia, had been employed by Brampton-based business provider Hilton Transportation 4 months earlier than his arrest and that this was solely his third journey.
Pulled over shortly after midnight on Christmas Eve 2019, he advised Canada Border Companies Company officers on the Ambassador Bridge he was coming back from California after 9 days within the U.S. and had two cartons of cigarettes to declare.
Later investigation revealed he had been in a foreign country for 14 days and that at one level he left his truck close to the Mexican border, crossed on foot after which used Uber transportation.
Abdirahman’s employer testified on the Windsor trial. Realizing considered one of his drivers had left his truck within the U.S. to make a side-trip to Mexico, Thomas mentioned in his judgment, “would have been an enormous purple flag for him because the enterprise proprietor.” Over the 2 days he was in Mexico, his driver log data as an alternative claimed he was in California, spending practically 23 hours in his truck’s sleeper bunk.
Culling data from Abdirahman’s seized cellphone, the RCMP found he had remodeled 80 communications with a contact often called ‘El Chapo’ within the three weeks previous to his Ambassador Bridge border crossing on Dec. 23, together with 14 calls made the day earlier than.
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A retired drug investigation sergeant with the RCMP advised the Windsor trial that because the tightening of rules in Canada and the U.S. on the provision of precursor medication wanted to supply meth, manufacturing in Mexico has elevated and is managed by that nation’s legal cartels.
The Crown’s rivalry was that Abdirahman’s “diversion into Mexico” was more likely to agency up particulars of supply of the meth. Thomas mentioned, whereas “suspicious,” he couldn’t draw the identical conclusions. However that little bit of proof from the prosecution, the choose added, was, “frankly, on this case, pointless.”
Methamphetamine is a robust artificial stimulant used for its psychoactive results and is very addictive. Frequent use can result in paranoia, psychosis and aggressive and violent behaviour, based on the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Dependancy.
One of many options made by the defence to argue cheap doubt within the prosecution’s case towards Abdirahman was that one other Hilton driver, following in one other truck, “could have used Abdirahman as a decoy to get arrested, permitting (that driver) and his load of contraband to cross undetected.”
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Thomas described the 196.7 kg of meth (with out packaging) in Abdirahman’s automobile as being “in each conceivable place of storage within the cab of the truck.” He cited one other court docket case through which the choose mentioned it could be cheap to deduce “that such a helpful amount of medication wouldn’t be entrusted to anybody who didn’t know the character of the contents.”
Border brokers advised the trial they needed to don particular protecting gear to go looking the truck’s cab because of the “very sturdy chemical odour,” much like the scent of nail polish, and that it was irritating to nostril and eyes.
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After the choose learn the responsible verdicts, defence lawyer Jessica Grbevski mentioned her consumer had been free on bail since December 2019 with out incident, reporting to police on a weekly foundation, and that he had not been ready to be jailed forward of sentencing. Pollock argued for rapid incarceration, citing two different Windsor drug trafficking circumstances the place people going through related doubtlessly hefty jail sentences, and with ties to different nations, had absconded.
Thomas concurred with the Crown, telling the now-convicted drug trafficker: “You’ve been out of custody for 4 years, however that ends at the moment.”
dschmidt@postmedia.com
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