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Canadian and US Cops Uncover Criminal Scheme During Border Operation
Jim Kouri | TheRealityCheck.org | July 1, 2006

Calling it one of the most brazen criminal schemes ever uncovered along the US-Canada border, authorities from the two countries on Thursday unveiled the results of a multi-agency operation targeting a network of smuggling organizations that used aircraft to ferry tons of drugs across the border, dropping many of the loads in broad daylight at remote wooded locations in the State of Washington and Canada's British Columbia.

At a news conference on Thursday morning, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement Julie Myers, US Attorney John McKay, and Royal Canadian Mounted Police Chief Superintendent Bud Mercer outlined details of a nearly two-year ICE-led enforcement effort called Operation Frozen Timber.

ICE and the RCMP worked closely with federal, state and local agencies from both nations on the Operation. Since the investigation began in November 2004, the United States Attorneys' Offices in Seattle and Spokane have issued 45 indictments in connection with the case, resulting in more than 40 arrests so far. In Canada, the RCMP has made six related arrests.

In total, U.S. and Canadian authorities have seized roughly 8,000 pounds of marijuana, 800 pounds of cocaine, three aircraft, and $1.5 million in U.S. currency.

“These organized criminal groups are motivated by one thing: greed,” said John McKay, US Attorney for the Western District of Washington.

“With Operation Frozen Timber, we not only cut into their profits with countless seizures of drugs and money, we demonstrated that there is a high price to pay. Drug ring leader Robert Kesling now knows that high price -- he is doing 17 years in federal prison.”

Authorities say the British Columbia-based smuggling organizations targeted in Operation Frozen Timber used helicopters and planes to transport drugs to pre-arranged drop sites on public lands throughout the region, including locations in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie and Okanogan National Forests, and North Cascades National Park.

The network smuggled high-grade Canadian grown marijuana into the United States and cocaine into Canada. At Thursday's news conference, authorities played dramatic surveillance footage taken during the investigation which featured several clips showing how the drug traffickers operated.

“The criminals involved in this scheme literally took cross-border smuggling to new heights,” said ICE Assistant Secretary Myers.

“This sophisticated illegal operation underscores the importance of addressing border security comprehensively. We must look not only at the borders themselves, but also at the interior, and at the modes and methods used by criminals who attempt to do us harm.”

During the course of Operation Frozen Timber, U.S. and Canadian enforcement teams intercepted more than 17 drug loads, including one shipment in February 2005 involving five suitcases packed with 149 kilograms of cocaine that constituted the largest single cocaine seizure in the state of Washington last year.

Authorities say the defendants planned to use a helicopter to smuggle the cocaine from a landing site in the Okanogan National Forest to British Columbia. Another significant seizure in the case came in September 2005, when agents followed two courier vehicles to a residence and recovered more than 1,100 pounds of marijuana.

“Operation Frozen Timber is a great example of an integrated and coordinated international law enforcement effort,” said CBP Assistant Commissioner Michael C. Kostelnik.

“Both CBP and RCMP air assets played a critical role in supporting this investigation and provided us an opportunity to introduce new technologies and tactics.”

The most recent interdiction occurred early last month after CBP air assets, acting on a tip from the RCMP, tracked a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter to a landing site in a state wildlife area in Okanogan County. After watching the cargo being transferred to a waiting pick up truck, ICE agents, along with officers from the U.S. Forest Service and the Okanogan Drug Task Force, stopped the vehicle, arresting the two men inside and recovering 329 pounds of marijuana.

When the helicopter arrived back in British Columbia, the RCMP arrested the two Canadian pilots, Daryl Desjardins, 45, and Dustin Haugen, 24. Desjardins and Haugen are presently charged in Canada with Import/Export of a Controlled Substance, Trafficking in a Controlled Substance, and Possession of Firearms Contrary to Order.

Intelligence gathered during Operation Frozen Timber revealed there were several independent aerial smuggling cells that essentially subcontracted their services to other criminal organizations seeking to ferry drugs between the two countries. Investigators believe a number of the defendants in the case provided smuggling services to multiple criminal organizations.

“Make no mistake; these criminal organizations pose a threat to our safe homes and communities. Pilots were flying unsafe aircraft often at dangerously low altitudes,” stated RCMP Chief Superintendent Mercer.

“The violent nature of the organized crime groups and the high powered weapons they were in possession of posed a direct threat to the citizens of Canada and the United States,” he added.

Authorities say the public safety concerns associated with the smuggling scheme extend beyond the implications for border security. Several of the Canadian pilots linked to the plot were not licensed to fly in the United States or Canada.

In the last 13 months, at least two helicopters allegedly linked to the network have crashed, resulting in three deaths. In March 2005, one of the pilots arrested in connection with Operation Frozen Timber, Dustin Haugen, was involved in the crash of a Canadian registered helicopter at a residence in Abbotsford, British Columbia, killing a woman at the scene. In September 2005, Canadian Ove Jensen and Richard Long were killed when a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter crashed in Hope, British Columbia after returning from a suspected smuggling flight to the United States.

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jtaylor

In an issue of Playboy I read earlier in the year, they did an interview with some people in a drug smuggling ring. They used helicopters to drop the goods somewhere in the forest up in the Washington area. This bust sounds very similar or there are a bunch of people who use helicopters to do this.

jon

SnowMinion

wow, you actually read the articles =P

Plainsman1963

Same folks...In fact this investigation pre-dates the playboy interview, so while they were jabbering away, they were already on the road to incarceration.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/29/dru...ing/index.html
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl.../International

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jtaylor

Wow, that's nuts. Good find on the CNN articles. I knew these ops sounded awfully familiar. I wonder how these smugglers feel when they are doing these things. They're bound to know someone is watching them for op this big, kind of seems avoidable these days.

Also, I don't know why they quote these pilots as poor ones. The impression I received from the Playboy article was these pilots were very skilled, maybe from the Vietnam era of former military. Either way they said handling those helicopters in the canyons where wind direction shifts so unexpectedly made them pretty top notch pilots. I actually have the magazine somewhere in the house, I'll scan the article and post it, it's quite an interesting read.

jon

 

troublemaker_42

What the cops fail to mention is that all they did was create more demand for the prduct, and theat there's 30 people waiting to fill in the gaps that this bust has created. Theres money to be made, and as long as that is true, there will always be supply to meet the demand. A bust here, a bust there, even of this significance, is only a bump in the road. Whether by air,land, or sea, the bud will still get to those that want it.

jtaylor

I also had another Playboy article on the Canadian bud scene. This teenager would ride his mountain bike through the protected forests until he got to the Canadian side, scoop up his goods in his backpack and head across the border. Not to bad of an idea to me.

jon