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US Police Snare Canadian Man With 12 Pot-Stuffed Hockey Bags: US Border Patrol Agents Arrest Coquitlam Resident Near Port Angles.
By admin | July 10, 2004
By Susan Lazaruk
Can West News Service
May 30, 2004
A Canadian man caught in the US with a dozen hockey bags full of BC-grown marijuana has been charged with possession of drugs with intent to distribute.
The amount of marijuana, valued at $4.5 million Cdn, was desribed by a US official as “substantial.”
Michael J. Seabrook, 24, of Coquitlam will remain in custody until his detention hearing on Thursday morning, said Emily Langlie of the US Attoney’s Office.
Seabrook was arrested near Port Angeles, Wash., by US Border Patrol agents on routine patrol.
A silver Ford Excursion was spotted leaving a remote beach area near Joyce, a small town 25 kilometres west of Port Angles, early Thursday morning.
Drug-sniffing dogs were alerted to drugs in the vehicle while it was stopped at a roadside convenience store. Police found 260 kilograms of “BC bud.”
“It’s substancial,” said Joseph Giuliano of US Customs in Blaine, Wash. “It’s more than three times bigger than the average drug bust of about 180 pounds.”
Giuliano said there are likely others involved. “Typically Mr. Big woudn’t be the one smuggling drugs,” he said. “They hire people for these things. Anybody who’s willing to make an illegal buck.”
He said it’s likely drugs were shipped over Juan de Fuca Strait from the south end of Vancouver Island, about an hours ferries ride away, in a small boat, a smuggling option that has become more popular.
“A year ago it would have been rare but we’ve seeing it more and more frequently,” said Giuliano.
In a similiar case, three Lower Mainland men, all in their 20′s, were charged with smuggling 900 kilograms of “BC bud” into the US February after snowmobilers tripped a US Border Patrol motion detector late at night near the BC-Idaho border.
They remain in jail with bail set at $1.2 million US, at least until their trial date on July 26. If convicted, the trio face minimum sentences of five years in jail and fines of $15,000.
Increased attempts to smuggle drugs over the US-Canada border, particularily in the Pacific Northwest, have forced the US to hike the number of surveillance airplanes to more regularly monitor the 6,500 km border.
The surveillance is similar to that used on the US-Mexican border to thwart drug smuggling and will patrol for drugs, explosives and terrorists smuggling.
The Border Patrol has tripled the number of agents along the northern border to 1,000 since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
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