A Quebec trucker caught trying to enter Canada at the Ambassador Bridge three years ago with 80 kilograms of high-grade cocaine was in a Windsor courtroom Tuesday, seeking to have years shaved off his prison sentence after turning prosecution witness.
A Quebec trucker caught trying to enter Canada at the Ambassador Bridge three years ago with 80 kilograms of high-grade cocaine was in a Windsor courtroom Tuesday, seeking to have years shaved off his prison sentence after turning prosecution witness.
Gurinder Singh, 29, pleaded guilty last February to charges of importation of a controlled drug and possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking. A Canada Border Services Agency dog sniffed out his illicit cargo in the transport truck trailer.
Singh, of LaSalle, Que., chose to co-operate with prosecutors after he was shown police video surveillance of deliveries he made to others at the conclusion of previous commercial trips to the U.S. Three individuals alleged to be further up the drug trafficking chain are now on trial in Toronto.
Singh confessed to making the July 30, 2019, drug run, but he confessed to cocaine deliveries of similar quantities depicted in the June 12 and July 11 police surveillance videos. Federal drug prosecutor Stephane Marinier told Superior Court Justice Renee Pomerance on Tuesday that those three shipments involving an estimated 240kg — a “massive quantity” — had a street value of up to $26 million but didn’t represent the total number of cocaine runs into Canada admitted to by Singh.
Marinier argued for a reduced “exceptional circumstance” sentence given the importance of his testimony in the current trafficking case against members of a criminal organization. Without that co-operation, he said the Crown would be seeking a prison term of 13 to 15 years but that, because of it, the court should consider a lesser sentence of seven to eight years in prison.
In deciding appropriate punishment, defence lawyer Patrick Ducharme urged the judge to also take into consideration the “danger” his client now faces for testifying against others who stood to make millions. Ducharme argued for a prison sentence in the five- to seven-year range.
Pomerance announces her decision in February.
“He lives every day in fear of his life,” Ducharme told the judge. He said Singh is not being paranoid constantly worrying that “somebody more powerful than you could do harm to you or your family.”
Marinier said Singh had unloaded a commercial shipment in Lima, OH, before being instructed to drive in the opposite direction of returning home and then to pull over and wait for another driver. A trucker reporting at the border that he was returning from Ohio, said the prosecutor, is less likely to draw the attention of Canada Border Services Agency officers than a truck arriving from cocaine-source states like California or Texas.
Marinier said Singh’s “substantial” co-operation was key to the trafficking charges against the other three. The 80kg of cocaine in the July 30 shipment was up to 87 per cent pure, he said, with an estimated street value of up to $8.8 million. Ducharme said his client’s promised payout was $40,000.
Singh, 27 at the time of his arrest, told the author of a pre-sentence report that he got involved with “unsavoury” characters to help pay for an upcoming wedding. He got out of debt by agreeing to become a cocaine courier but then continued in that capacity, said Marinier, “out of greed.”
Ducharme said his client, with no prior criminal record, was a “minor player” in the operation, but Marinier described cross-border cocaine trafficking as one of the most serious Canadian criminal offences, carrying a maximum life sentence. Cocaine, he said, is “a cancer … a catalyst for countless other crimes” and one that “tears apart the fabric of society and so many families.”
It’s only through couriers like Singh that cocaine gets into Canada, bringing with it “untold misery,” said Marinier.
The judge asked whether “restrictive custody” was needed to protect Singh while imprisoned.
“Yes, he requires protective custody,” said Ducharme. His client needs to be “carefully guarded, carefully watched … with no ability to be with other inmates.”