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Illegally in the country and convicted of stealing electricity
By Hempology | June 29, 2007
Calgary Herald, AB
28 Jun 2007
Jason van Rassel
MARIJUANA GROWER DEPORTED
Man Connected To More Than A Dozen Grow Ops
Authorities have deported a man convicted for his role in a network of more than a dozen Calgary-area marijuana grow ops.
Canada Border Services Agency officers handed over Lai Guan Tan, 34, to foreign officials last week.
Although agency officials didn’t disclose Tan’s destination, documents list him as a Malaysian national.
Police arrested Tan in March as part of a seven-month undercover investigation that found grow ops in more than a dozen homes in Calgary, Irricana and Balzac.
Investigators described it as a “high-level distribution network” selling drugs in Canada and the U.S. On June 5, Tan was convicted of stealing electricity. The Crown stayed charges of production of marijuana and possession for the purposes of trafficking.
Tan was given credit for three days served in pretrial custody and given an additional day in jail, but by that time the sentence was moot — immigration officials had taken custody of him in April and were preparing to deport him.
At that time, authorities couldn’t even establish Tan’s true identity: at the time of his arrest, he had been living in Canada under the name Le Chun Hing for six years.
An immigration adjudicator heard evidence at a detention hearing on April 20 that Tan obtained an Ontario driver’s licence bearing the false identity before even entering Canada and then used it to get an Alberta licence when he moved to this province.
Beyond that, however, authorities could find no other records bearing either identity.
“Mr. Tan has no social insurance number under any of his assumed names and the minister has concerns with regards to his employment and survival in Canada. Was this through illegal employment? Was this through illegal activities? No one can say for certain,” government lawyer Dan Davidson told the adjudicator.
Although Tan was initially detained because immigration officials couldn’t establish his identity, his deportation was ultimately ordered because he had remained in Canada illegally after his six-month visitor’s visa expired.
Adjudicator Paul Kyba ordered that Tan would remain in custody until his deportation last Friday because of the likelihood he would disappear if released.
“It is my opinion you are quite adept and willing to use false identity documents for whatever purpose you set out to achieve. You have been in Canada for some six years without regularizing your status after your visitor’s authorization would have expired,” Kyba said.
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