The B.C. Court of Appeal has rejected a bid by two B.C. brothers accused of drug smuggling in Washington state to halt their extradition to the U.S.

Oscar Edgardo Mendoza and Rember Oswaldo Guevara-Mendoza are accused of conspiring to smuggle large quantities of cocaine and ecstasy across the border.

They were ordered extradited in June 2016, but filed an appeal of that B.C. Supreme Court ruling.

Mendoza and Guevara-Mendoza appealed both the extradition order and a later decision by the justice minister to hand them over to American authorities. They argued that the earlier judge should have granted their application for further disclosure in the case. And they said the evidence the U.S. cited was insufficient to support their extradition.

But Appeal Court Justice Gregory Fitch disagreed, saying the “extradition judge did not err in finding the evidence sufficient to justify committal.”

“In my view, the decision of the minister to order the surrender of both applicants is reasonable and discloses no reviewable error that would justify intervention on judicial review,” Fitch said in his written reasons, released last month. “I would dismiss the appeals from committal. I would also dismiss the applications for judicial review of the minister’s decisions to surrender the applicants to the requesting state for prosecution.”

Mendoza also claimed in his appeal that the justice minister did not consider the impact of his extradition on his three children.

But Fitch said “the minister thoroughly considered Mr. Mendoza’s family situation … along with the importance of complying with Canada’s international obligations to its extradition partners.”

Appeal Court Justices Sunni Stromberg-Stein and Lauri Ann Fenlon agreed.

The brothers were charged after authorities seized 54 kilograms of cocaine in the United States that was destined for Canada and 59 kg of ecstasy in Canada that was headed for the U.S.

The drugs were seized following an elaborate undercover operation involving police and drug-enforcement officials on both sides of the border.

Evidence against the brothers consisted mainly of phone and text communications they had with a man in Washington state who knew them and was secretly working with law enforcement.

In July 2012, after communications between the accused and the man identified only as a “confidential witness,” 29 kg of cocaine destined for Canada was seized in Bellingham, Wash.

Authorities replaced a suitcase full of the 29 kg of cocaine they had seized with a substance resembling cocaine. The suitcase containing the sham cocaine was then smuggled across the border and later recovered by police and drug-enforcement officials at an Abbotsford home.

U.S. authorities say the pair continued to smuggle drugs across the border. Two more shipments of cocaine — 14 kg in August 2012 and another 11 kg in December 2012 — were seized by police in Washington.

In February 2013, RCMP recovered 41 clear-plastic, heat-sealed bags from two backpacks in one of the brother’s vehicles in the parking lot of a Langley theatre. The total weight of the ecstasy was just under 60 kg.

kbolan@postmedia.com

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read the full ruling here

I saw this interesting ruling on the B.C. Supreme Court website. It was just posted this week, though the sentencing hearing was just before Christmas. Hard to imagine anyone would agree to fly any narcotic into another country unless under duress.

Here’s my story:

The B.C. director of civil forfeiture wants criminal convictions against several Hells Angels admitted as evidence in an upcoming civil trial over the seizure of three biker clubhouses.

Lawyer Brent Olthuis, representing the government agency, argued in B.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday that admitting the biker convictions and related court rulings would be appropriate in the civil case.

Olthuis told Justice Barry Davies that the convictions are relevant to show the reputation of the Hells Angels, who he referred to as the HAMC.

“We are wanting to introduce these convictions … against the HAMC members primarily in aid of the allegations … as to the main purposes and activities of the HAMC and the members of that club and their awareness of the club’s public reputation,” Olthuis said. “These convictions are clearly probative.”

He also said that several of the Hells Angels defendants refused to answer questions about the convictions during pre-trial discovery sessions.

The long-running civil forfeiture case began in 2007 when the government seized the Hells Angels’ Nanaimo clubhouse, alleging that he had been used for criminal purposes.

The director of civil forfeiture later made the same allegations in lawsuits he filed to seize biker clubhouses for the East End Vancouver and Kelowna chapters.

And the Hells Angels filed a countersuit in 2012, seeking to get B.C.’s Civil Forfeiture Act declared unconstitutional.

The trial has been delayed several times, but is now set to begin next month at the Vancouver Law Courts.

Hells Angels Clubhouse at 3598 E. Georgia street in Vancouver.

The government’s amended claim alleges that if the Hells Angels get to keep the clubhouses they will be used in the future “to enhance the ability of a criminal organization, namely the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, to commit indictable offences.”

Olthuis said it was a more efficient use of the court’s time to enter all the criminal convictions and related rulings into evidence rather than have to call evidence about the individual prosecutions.

He listed the cases he wants admitted:

• the 2007 conviction of former Hells Angels hang-around Jonathan Sal Bryce for trafficking inside the East End clubhouse. Bryce is the son of chapter president John Bryce, and was arrested during the E-Pandora undercover investigation targeting the biker gang;
• Eight different convictions against Nomads Hells Angel Ronaldo Lising, a former East End chapter member;
• Three convictions against East End Hells Angels Jean Violette;
• Six convictions against former East End member John Punko;
• Manslaughter convictions against Kelowna Hells Angels Rob Thomas and Norman Cocks;
• A conviction against former Hells Angel enforcer Jules Stanton, who was murdered in 2010;
• A series of convictions against former Hells Angel Randy Potts;
• Two convictions against Kelowna Hells Angel Joseph Skreptak;
• And convictions against former Nanaimo chapter members Robert “Fred” Widdifield and Rajinder Sandhu in an extortion case;
• Convictions against Kelowna Hells Angels David Giles and Bryan Oldham in a drug conspiracy case. Giles died last year while serving his sentence.

• Kelowna Hells Angels clubhouse

Lawyer Greg DelBigio, representing some of the Hells Angels defendants, argued that it would be inappropriate to have the convictions and judgments admitted.

He said the earlier cases “are irrelevant to the proceedings and they are beyond the scope of questioning at discovery.”

DelBigio said that because the government is arguing that the clubhouses will be used in the future for criminal activity, it is impossible to speculate about who it believes would be committing the offences.

“My friends don’t say that a particular person at a particular point in time in the future is likely to do a particular crime,” he said. “It is that somebody at some unspecific point of time is going to do something.”

He said that some of the convictions reference are “very, very old” and that have to bearing on the government’s allegations in the current case.

Pre-trial applications are set for two more days this week before the civil forfeiture trial begins April 23.

kbolan@postmedia.com

blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

twitter.com/kbolan

A man who pleaded guilty to manslaughter for the fatal shooting of a gang associate in Maple Ridge in 2016 has been sentenced to four and a half years in jail.

Deane Sahanovitch appeared in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster March 2 to plead guilty to manslaughter for the slaying of Jonathen Patko, 32. A murder charge he was facing was dropped.

He was also handed a lifetime firearms prohibition.

Patko was found shot to death about 2 a.m. on Sept. 24, 2016 in the 24300-block of 102 Avenue in Maple Ridge.

The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team announced the change in plea Tuesday, without providing any details as to why the murder charge could no longer be supported.

IHIT Corporal Frank Jang said: IHIT investigators, supported by the Ridge Meadows RCMP, worked diligently in order to secure the evidence in this investigation. 

Sahanovitch, 56, was arrested weeks after Patko was killed.

After the arrest, Patko’s mother posted a comment on her Facebook page suggesting others were with others with Sahanovitch at the time of the shooting and she hoped they would also be charged.

Prior to the shooting, Sahanovitch had no criminal history in B.C.  

Deane Sahanovitch in Facebook photo

Patko had run-ins with the law in his youth. When he was still a teen, he was charged in the beating death of a Port Coquitlam man along with Jesse Margison. Patko was later acquitted by a jury, while Margison pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Margison, a gangster with the Independent Soldiers gang, later suffered a head injury in a jailhouse beating while in pretrial custody on other charges.

Patko was convicted in 2008 of providing false information and was fined $3,000. In 2015 he was handed a 20-month driving prohibition for driving without due care and attention.

Two gangland killers who mistakenly shot the wrong person in 2009 have lost their appeal of their first-degree murder convictions.

Kevin Jones and Colin Stewart were convicted by a jury two years ago of the Sept. 29, 2009 slaying of Rajinder Soomel in Vancouver.

Right before Soomel was gunned down in the middle of Cambie Street, the killers had barged into the nearby Dick Bell-Irving halfway house and demanded information about another inmate, Independent Soldiers founder Randy Naicker.

A worker at the house erroneously said Naicker had gone out to a store, when it was Soomel who had in fact left the house that night.

The jurors heard that horrified bystanders watched two men chase Soomel across Cambie Street and fire 10 shots, eight of them hitting Soomel in the back and face.

The Crown’s case was based on circumstantial evidence, including DNA of the accused found on items discarded by the shooters in a panicked getaway and the cellphone records of the accused.

Randy Naicker was gunned down on a busy Port Moody street in June 2012.

On appeal, Jones challenged the admissibility of a statement he made to police months after the shooting, as well as the judge’s instructions to the jury, while Stewart claimed his Charter rights were violated by the admissibility of the DNA and other evidence.

Appeal Court Justice Peter Lowry disagreed.

In the case of Jones’ statement to a Vancouver detective, Lowry said it was “admissible, substantially for the reasons give by the trial judge.”

And he also concluded that “the judge did not err in terms of the admission of evidence in the case against Jones or in the instructions she gave to the jury.”

“Rather, she properly admitted the statement given to the detective and the evidence of the police test drives, and she properly discharged her duty to instruct the jury on their task,” he said.

Lowry also rejected Stewart’s claim that he had been subjected to “a systemic and deliberate pattern of Charter breaches” which the judge did not appropriately consider.

“There can, however, be little merit in this contention when having regard for all of what the judge said, as discussed, and the considerable deference her ruling is to be afforded,” Lowry said. 

Appeal Court Justices David Tysoe and John Savage concurred.

Police on the scene of Randy Naicker’s murder in Port Moody in 2012.

Lowry noted in Wednesday’s ruling that Jones’ DNA was found on a black hoodie and a green bandana discarded on the escape route the killers took. Stewart’s was found on two gloves and a grey hoodie that were also found near the crime scene.

Both men escaped in a getaway car owned by Jesse Adkins, a United Nations gang member.

Rajinder Singh Soomel.

“It was the same car the staff at the halfway house had observed to be occupied by three men driving by very slowly three times within an hour and then later parked watching the house on the 25th, the day after Naicker moved in,” Lowry noted.

“As was accepted at the trial, Adkins was, at the time, living in the basement of Stewart’s house outside of Vancouver. He disappeared within a few days of the shooting.”

A witness at the murder trial of alleged UN hitman Cory Vallee testified last year that gangster Gurmit Dhak hired the UN to kill Naicker and two others. Naicker was later shot to death in Port Moody in 2012.

The witness also said that Adkins was involved in the Soomel murder, as well as the February 2009 murder of Red Scorpion Kevin LeClair. And the man testified that the UN had arranged to have Adkins killed by a cartel contact in Mexico because they feared he would cooperate with police.

kbolan@postmedia.com

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Read the full ruling here

The long-awaited trial between the B.C. director of civil forfeiture and three Hells Angels chapters finally gets underway next month – 11.5 years after the case began.

This week, the parties are in B.C. Supreme Court to argue pre-trial applications related to the evidence expected in the case. Justice Barry Davies will issue rulings on the applications before the trial begins April 23.

I sat in on one of the applications:

Here’s my story:

 

The B.C. director of civil forfeiture wants criminal convictions against several Hells Angels admitted as evidence in an upcoming civil trial over the seizure of three biker clubhouses.

Lawyer Brent Olthuis, representing the government agency, argued in B.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday that admitting the biker convictions and related court rulings would be appropriate in the civil case.

Olthuis told Justice Barry Davies that the convictions are relevant to show the reputation of the Hells Angels, who he referred to as the HAMC.

“We are wanting to introduce these convictions … against the HAMC members primarily in aid of the allegations … as to the main purposes and activities of the HAMC and the members of that club and their awareness of the club’s public reputation,” Olthuis said. “These convictions are clearly probative.”

He also said that several of the Hells Angels defendants refused to answer questions about the convictions during pre-trial discovery sessions.

The long-running civil forfeiture case began in 2007 when the government seized the Hells Angels’ Nanaimo clubhouse, alleging that he had been used for criminal purposes.

The director of civil forfeiture later made the same allegations in lawsuits he filed to seize biker clubhouses for the East End Vancouver and Kelowna chapters.

And the Hells Angels filed a countersuit in 2012, seeking to get B.C.’s Civil Forfeiture Act declared unconstitutional.

The trial has been delayed several times, but is now set to begin next month at the Vancouver Law Courts.

The government’s amended claim alleges that if the Hells Angels get to keep the clubhouses they will be used in the future “to enhance the ability of a criminal organization, namely the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, to commit indictable offences.”

Olthuis said it was a more efficient use of the court’s time to enter all the criminal convictions and related rulings into evidence rather than have to call evidence about the individual prosecutions.

He listed the cases he wants admitted:

• the 2007 conviction of former Hells Angels hang-around Jonathan Sal Bryce for trafficking inside the East End clubhouse. Bryce is the son of chapter president John Bryce, and was arrested during the E-Pandora undercover investigation targeting the biker gang;
• Eight different convictions against Nomads Hells Angel Ronaldo Lising, a former East End chapter member;
• Three convictions against East End Hells Angels Jean Violette;
• Six convictions against former East End member John Punko;
• Manslaughter convictions against Kelowna Hells Angels Rob Thomas and Norman Cocks;
• A conviction against former Hells Angel enforcer Jules Stanton, who was murdered in 2010;
• A series of convictions against former Hells Angel Randy Potts;
• Two convictions against Kelowna Hells Angel Joseph Skreptak;
• And convictions against former Nanaimo chapter members Robert “Fred” Widdifield and Rajinder Sandhu in an extortion case;
• Convictions against Kelowna Hells Angels David Giles and Bryan Oldham in a drug conspiracy case. Giles died last year while serving his sentence.

 

Lawyer Greg DelBigio, representing some of the Hells Angels defendants, argued that it would be inappropriate to have the convictions and judgments admitted.

He said the earlier cases “are irrelevant to the proceedings and they are beyond the scope of questioning at discovery.”

DelBigio said that because the government is arguing that the clubhouses will be used in the future for criminal activity, it is impossible to speculate about who it believes would be committing the offences.

“My friends don’t say that a particular person at a particular point in time in the future is likely to do a particular crime,” he said. “It is that somebody at some unspecific point of time is going to do something.”

He said that some of the convictions reference are “very, very old” and that have to bearing on the government’s allegations in the current case.

Pre-trial applications are set for two more days this week before the civil forfeiture trial begins April 23.

kbolan@postmedia.com

blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

twitter.com/kbolan

Two assassins who tried to shoot gang leader Randy Naicker but ending up killing his halfway house roommate have lost appeals of their convictions.

Kevin Jones and Colin Stewart were convicted in 2016 – nine years after Rajinder Soomel was shot to death near Cambie and 19th in Vancouver. The pair had pistol whipped a staff member at the Dick Bell-Irving halfway house to get information about Naicker’s whereabouts. He mistakenly told the killers that Naicker had walked to the store when it was Soomel who had gone out and ended up dead.

Here’s my story:

 

Two gangland killers who mistakenly shot the wrong person in 2009 have lost their appeal of their first-degree murder convictions.

Kevin Jones and Colin Stewart were convicted by a jury two years ago of the Sept. 29, 2009 slaying of Rajinder Soomel in Vancouver.

Right before Soomel was gunned down in the middle of Cambie Street, the killers had barged into the nearby Dick Bell-Irving halfway house and demanded information about another inmate, Independent Soldiers founder Randy Naicker.

A worker at the house erroneously said Naicker had gone out to a store, when it was Soomel who had in fact left the house that night.

The jurors heard that horrified bystanders watched two men chase Soomel across Cambie Street and fire 10 shots, eight of them hitting Soomel in the back and face.

The Crown’s case was based on circumstantial evidence, including DNA of the accused found on items discarded by the shooters in a panicked getaway and the cellphone records of the accused.

On appeal, Jones challenged the admissibility of a statement he made to police months after the shooting, as well as the judge’s instructions to the jury, while Stewart claimed his Charter rights were violated by the admissibility of the DNA and other evidence.

Appeal Court Justice Peter Lowry disagreed.

In the case of Jones’ statement to a Vancouver detective, Lowry said it was “admissible, substantially for the reasons give by the trial judge.”

And he also concluded that “the judge did not err in terms of the admission of evidence in the case against Jones or in the instructions she gave to the jury.”

“Rather, she properly admitted the statement given to the detective and the evidence of the police test drives, and she properly discharged her duty to instruct the jury on their task,” he said.

Lowry also rejected Stewart’s claim that he had been subjected to “a systemic and deliberate pattern of Charter breaches” which the judge did not appropriately consider.

“There can, however, be little merit in this contention when having regard for all of what the judge said, as discussed, and the considerable deference her ruling is to be afforded,” Lowry said. 

Appeal Court Justices David Tysoe and John Savage concurred.

Lowry noted in Wednesday’s ruling that Jones’ DNA was found on a black hoodie and a green bandana discarded on the escape route the killers took. Stewart’s was found on two gloves and a grey hoodie that were also found near the crime scene.

Both men escaped in a getaway car owned by Jesse Adkins, a United Nations gang member.

“It was the same car the staff at the halfway house had observed to be occupied by three men driving by very slowly three times within an hour and then later parked watching the house on the 25th, the day after Naicker moved in,” Lowry noted.

“As was accepted at the trial, Adkins was, at the time, living in the basement of Stewart’s house outside of Vancouver. He disappeared within a few days of the shooting.”

A witness at the murder trial of alleged UN hitman Cory Vallee testified last year that gangster Gurmit Dhak hired the UN to kill Naicker and two others. Naicker was later shot to death in Port Moody in 2012.

The witness also said that Adkins was involved in the Soomel murder, as well as the February 2009 murder of Red Scorpion Kevin LeClair. And the man testified that the UN had arranged to have Adkins killed by a cartel contact in Mexico because they feared he would cooperate with police.

kbolan@postmedia.com

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twitter.com/kbolan

Read the full ruling:  

The owner of a Vancouver company that sells encrypted BlackBerrys popular with B.C. gangsters is facing charges in the U.S. of racketeering, conspiracy and drug trafficking.

Vincent Ramos, who started Phantom Secure in 2008, is even alleged in U.S. court documents to have sold his specialized devices to “some members of the (Mexican) Sinaloa (drug) cartel.”

Ramos, 41, was arrested in the U.S. on Wednesday, as police in Metro Vancouver raided his business and home.

U.S. court documents obtained by Postmedia allege he set up his company a decade ago specifically to help international drug trafficking organizations evade police and now has more than 20,000 of his encrypted devices circulating around the world.

“According to law enforcement sources in Australia, Canada and the United States, Phantom Secure devices are used by the upper echelon of various transnational criminal organizations to communicate with their criminal compatriots and conduct the illegal activities of the organization,” FBI special agent Nicholas Cheviron says in the court documents.

“These law enforcement sources all report that they are unaware of any law enforcement partner that has identified even a single legitimate Phantom Secure user.”

The documents said: “Phantom Secure’s devices and service were specifically designed to prevent law enforcement from intercepting and monitoring communication on the network, and every facet of Phantom Secure’s corporate structure was set up specifically to facilitate criminal activity and to impede, obstruct and evade law enforcement.”

B.C. corporate documents list Ramos as president and sole director of Phantom Secure.

The U.S. alleges Ramos, Phantom Secure and others whose names are blacked out engaged in “a pattern of racketeering activity involving gambling, money laundering and drug trafficking.”

And Ramos is also alleged to have “knowingly and intentionally conspired with other persons to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine.”

The investigation into the Vancouver company appears to date back to at least 2015 and has involved the RCMP, police in Australia, and the FBI.

That year, the RCMP had undercover officers pose as drug traffickers to purchase devices from Phantom Service, Cheviron said in his court affidavit.

“During the vetting process, an undercover agent asked the Phantom Secure representative if it is safe to send messages that explicitly discussed drug trafficking, using the following examples ‘cocaine coming up,’ ‘sending MDMA to Montreal,’” Cheviron said.

“Phantom Secure’s employee replied that speaking explicitly was ‘totally fine’ because the servers were ‘based in Panama’ and ‘no one has access to our servers.’”

The RCMP undercover officers later pretended an associate had been arrested and asked Phantom Secure to delete his BlackBerry remotely.

“So he picked up the load (of drugs) and I think he’s been arrested. There is a lot of f–kin’ sh-t on my BlackBerry,” the purported trafficker said.

The employee confirmed with the undercover officer: “You wanna wipe both of them?”

“Yes,” he replied, calling the worker a “lifesaver.”

Ramos has not faced any charges in B.C. 

Undercover officers also met Ramos in Las Vegas a year ago and “posed as high-ranking members of a transnational drug trafficking organization seeking secure communications and data deletion services to facilitate an expansion of their drug trafficking activities in South America and Europe.”

“Ramos explained that Phantom Secure  was built specifically for the purpose of facilitated drug trafficking,” the documents said.

When the officers said they might need the GPS function on the phones if they had to kill an associate believed to be cooperating with police, Ramos responded: “Right, right, right, right.”

Phantom Secure boasts in its advertising that “the advantages of having our server and a portion of our business located in Panama” is that “Panama does not cooperate with any other countries’ inquiries.”

“Panama does not consider tax evasion a crime and as such does not help other countries in their investigations.”

The U.S. documents also said “to further conceal the location of its key and mail servers, Phantom Secure cloaks them in multiple layers of virtual proxy networks.”

Phantom Secure doesn’t allow just anyone to become a client. New customers have to get a “vouch” from an existing client, the documents say.

“I believe the purpose of the vouch requirement is to prevent law enforcement from penetrating Phantom Secure’s network,” Cheviron said.

The Vancouver company charges between $2,000 and $3,000 US for a six-month subscription.

“Phantom Secure guarantees that messages stored on its devices can be and will be remotely deleted by Phantom Secure if the device is seized by law enforcement or otherwise compromised.”

The documents indicate American authorities have several cooperating witnesses or “CWs” in the case against Ramos.

The first, CW-1, was arrested in September 2015 as he coordinated a shipment of more than 135 kilograms of cocaine from Los Angeles to Canada.

He told police his criminal organization worked with the Sinaloa cartel to get cocaine for Canada.

“CW-1 stated that over the course of several years, his drug trafficking organization moved hundreds of kilos of cocaine per month from Mexico through to the United States, ultimately destined for Canada and Australia. CW-1 used a Phantom Secure device to facilitate each of these transactions,” the documents said.

After his arrest, Phantom Secure tried to wipe his BlackBerry, but failed.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Annie Linteau refused to comment on the RCMP’s role in the investigation, except to confirm officers had been involved in executing search warrants in Metro Vancouver.

“All I can say at this point is that the RCMP is working as an assist to another police department. The B.C. warrants are currently sealed so we don’t have any information to share with you at this time,” she said.

Ramos appeared in Federal Court in Seattle on Thursday and was ordered detained pending his transfer to San Diego, where he will stand trial.

kbolan@postmedia.com

blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

twitter.com/kbolan

I was tipped to this interesting story late Wednesday and spent a day and a half tracking it down before finding the U.S. charging documents early Friday morning.

Vancouver encryption company, Phantom Secure, owned by Vincent Ramos, has been aiding international drug traffickers for years, including the notorious Sinaloa cartel headed by El Chapo, the U.S. says.

Ramos is now in jail south of the border facing a series of charges. His home and business was raided here Wednesday, though the RCMP wouldn’t say more about the investigation.

I have just learned tonight that Phantom Secure, which has 20,000 encrypted phones distributed around the world, closed its servers about noon today and clients can no longer message each other.

If anyone has more information on Ramos or a photo, can you please email me at: kbolan@postmedia.com or text me at: 604-219-5740

Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the head of the Sinaloa cartel, is in jail in the U.S. awaiting trial

Here’s my story:

A Vancouver businessman alleged to have sold encrypted BlackBerry’s to international drug-trafficking organizations laundered “tens of millions” of dollars of his illicit profits, U.S. law enforcement says in court documents.

Vincent Ramos, who owns Phantom Security Communications, was arrested in Washington state last Wednesday and is facing racketeering, drug-trafficking, conspiracy and money-laundering charges in San Diego.

The U.S. alleges he sold 20,000 of his specialized devices, as well as access to his encrypted communication network, to organized crime groups around the world, including the deadly Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, headed by Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman.

And Ramos used shell companies and crypto currencies to launder that money, documents obtained by Postmedia News say.

“Based on reports of the RCMP, Australia and the U.S. financial investigators and agents that I have reviewed, bank records, corporate ownership filings in Canada, Singapore and Hong Kong show that Phantom Secure generated tens of millions of dollars in revenue by facilitating the crimes of transnational criminal organizations and protecting these organizations from detection by law enforcement,” FBI special agent Nicholas Cheviron says in an affidavit filed in court.

“I know that to launder its ill-gotten gains and maintain its members’ anonymity, the Phantom Secure enterprise uses crypto currencies, including Bitcoin, and shell companies.”

Ramos appears to own only one property in B.C. — a New Westminster condo assessed this year at $424,000.

The U.S. documents don’t name the shell companies or state in which country they have been set up.

Meanwhile, in B.C., where Ramos started his company in 2008, he owes the government almost $150,000 in unpaid sales tax.

Phantom Secure’s online ad from its Australian website

Last November, the B.C. director of provincial sales tax obtained a court order to seize and sell the assets of Phantom Secure because of the unpaid $147,298.23 in tax. The court order lists Phantom Secure’s offices as being in Vancouver in the 200-block West 7th Avenue.

But Postmedia visited the multi-unit building Friday and found no reference to the controversial encryption company. A different Richmond address is listed on Phantom Secure’s most-recent B.C. corporate records. But the unit is a UPS Store and not a storefront for Ramos’s company.

Sources told Postmedia that Phantom Secure didn’t operate a public storefront in Metro Vancouver. But the company did have branches of its business in Los Angeles, Dubai, Mexico and Australia.

Phantom Secure’s closed-communications system shut down about noon Friday, according to some system-users.

The company issued a news release from Dubai in August 2015 announcing a new “online store.”

“Today, after months of anticipation, the encrypted telecom company giant Phantom Secure launches their new online store at phantomencrypt.com,” the release says. “A veteran in the secure-communications industry, Phantom Secure has been delivering military-grade encrypted Blackberry devices to their clients for over a decade and are now finally about to offer an ecommerce payment solution to customers worldwide.”

The link to the store appears to have now been disabled.

In this Saturday, Feb. 22, 2014 photo, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is escorted to a helicopter in handcuffs by Mexican navy marines at a navy hanger in Mexico City, Mexico.

The news release claims the company started in Vancouver in 2004, even though the corporate records indicate an incorporation date of Jan. 2, 2008.

Australia has been Phantom Secure’s biggest and most controversial market. The U.S. court documents state that half of the 20,000 devices sold by the Vancouver company are in the hands of organized criminals Down Under.

The Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported in 2014 that one biker gang was using Phantom Secure devices to arrange successful hits on two Hells Angels. Police complained at the time that the murder investigations were stymied by their inability to crack the devices to obtain evidence in the cases.

The problem of organized crime using various encryption companies to evade police has been an ongoing issue in B.C. and other jurisdictions, according to the Combined Forces Specialized Enforcement Unit.

“Organized-crime groups have been using encrypted devices for some time now in an attempt to thwart detection by police of any criminal activity, enforcement unit Sgt. Brenda Winpenny said. “This may complicate police investigations, however, police continue to diligently and tenaciously target organized crime leading to successful prosecutions of the individuals who pose the greatest risk to public safety.”

kbolan@postmedia.com

blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

twitter.com/kbolan

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Is there more to this story? We’d like to hear from you about this or any other stories you think we should know about. Email vantips@postmedia.com.</p

Here’s a follow story on the one I broke yesterday about Vancouver-based Phantom Secure Communications, which is alleged to  have been created solely to aid international drug trafficking organizations commit crimes undetected.

The U.S. court documents I got also said Vincent Ramos, who founded the company in 2008, laundered “tens of millions” of dollars of his illicit cash.

I am hoping to continue digging into this company and Ramos. If anyone has tips, please contact me at kbolan@postmedia.com or 604-219-5740

Here’s my story:

A Vancouver businessman alleged to have sold encrypted BlackBerry’s to international drug-trafficking organizations laundered “tens of millions” of dollars of his illicit profits, U.S. law enforcement says in court documents.

Vincent Ramos, who owns Phantom Security Communications, was arrested in Washington state last Wednesday and is facing racketeering, drug-trafficking, conspiracy and money-laundering charges in San Diego.

The U.S. alleges he sold 20,000 of his specialized devices, as well as access to his encrypted communication network, to organized crime groups around the world, including the deadly Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, headed by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

And Ramos used shell companies and crypto currencies to launder that money, documents obtained by Postmedia News say.

“Based on reports of the RCMP, Australia and the U.S. financial investigators and agents that I have reviewed, bank records, corporate ownership filings in Canada, Singapore and Hong Kong show that Phantom Secure generated tens of millions of dollars in revenue by facilitating the crimes of transnational criminal organizations and protecting these organizations from detection by law enforcement,” FBI special agent Nicholas Cheviron says in an affidavit filed in court.

“I know that to launder its ill-gotten gains and maintain its members’ anonymity, the Phantom Secure enterprise uses crypto currencies, including Bitcoin, and shell companies.”

Ramos appears to own only one property in B.C. — a New Westminster condo assessed this year at $424,000.

The U.S. documents don’t name the shell companies or state in which country they have been set up.

Meanwhile, in B.C., where Ramos started his company in 2008, he owes the government almost $150,000 in unpaid sales tax.

Last November, the B.C. director of provincial sales tax obtained a court order to seize and sell the assets of Phantom Secure because of the unpaid $147,298.23 in tax. The court order lists Phantom Secure’s offices as being in Vancouver in the 200-block West 7th Avenue.

But Postmedia visited the multi-unit building Friday and found no reference to the controversial encryption company. A different Richmond address is listed on Phantom Secure’s most-recent B.C. corporate records. But the unit is a UPS Store and not a storefront for Ramos’s company.

Sources told Postmedia that Phantom Secure didn’t operate a public storefront in Metro Vancouver. But the company did have branches of its business in Los Angeles, Dubai, Mexico and Australia.

Phantom Secure’s closed-communications system shut down about noon Friday, according to some system-users.

The company issued a news release from Dubai in August 2015 announcing a new “online store.”

“Today, after months of anticipation, the encrypted telecom company giant Phantom Secure launches their new online store at phantomencrypt.com,” the release says. “A veteran in the secure-communications industry, Phantom Secure has been delivering military-grade encrypted Blackberry devices to their clients for over a decade and are now finally about to offer an ecommerce payment solution to customers worldwide.”

The link to the store appears to have now been disabled.

The news release claims the company started in Vancouver in 2004, even though the corporate records indicate an incorporation date of Jan. 2, 2008.

Australia has been Phantom Secure’s biggest and most controversial market. The U.S. court documents state that half of the 20,000 devices sold by the Vancouver company are in the hands of organized criminals Down Under.

The Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported in 2014 that one biker gang was using Phantom Secure devices to arrange successful hits on two Hells Angels. Police complained at the time that the murder investigations were stymied by their inability to crack the devices to obtain evidence in the cases.

The problem of organized crime using various encryption companies to evade police has been an ongoing issue in B.C. and other jurisdictions, according to the Combined Forces Specialized Enforcement Unit.

“Organized-crime groups have been using encrypted devices for some time now in an attempt to thwart detection by police of any criminal activity, enforcement unit Sgt. Brenda Winpenny said. “This may complicate police investigations, however, police continue to diligently and tenaciously target organized crime leading to successful prosecutions of the individuals who pose the greatest risk to public safety.”

kbolan@postmedia.com

blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

When undercover FBI agents seized an encrypted BlackBerry from Vancouver company Phantom Secure last June, they decided to message one of the contacts on the device.

The mysterious figure — “a known drug trafficker located in Canada” — was identified only as The Goat.

Agents learned details of a clandestine drug shipment planned from B.C. to Washington State, according to U.S. court documents laying out charges against Phantom Secure’s Vancouver-based owner Vincent Ramos.

“This operation ultimately led to the arrest of Saysana Luangkhamdeng as he attempted to smuggle MDMA into the United States,” the documents said.

Ramos, 40, was arrested last week on charges of racketeering and drug trafficking for allegedly aiding international organized crime groups, including the deadly Mexican Sinaloa cartel. He is expected to go to trial in San Diego.

Records from Luangkhamdeng’s Seattle prosecution lay out more details of what happened when he crossed the border into Blaine on June 10, 2017, about 11:30 a.m. 

The Langley man, who is 41, was driving a 2009 Hyundai Santa Fe and wearing a Blue Jays jersey. He told a border guard that he and his passenger, another Canadian identified only as C.M. in the documents, were off to watch the Mariners play the Jays that afternoon at Safeco Field.

“According to the primary inspection officer, Luangkhamdeng appeared nervous and evasive during primary questioning,” U.S. Homeland Security Special Agent Nathan Hickman said in the original criminal complaint.

He said that Luangkhamdeng’s vehicle was similar to others that border guards had “found to have a secret compartment near the rear cargo area, so he was sent for secondary inspection.”

Related

• Vancouver man laundered 'tens of millions' of crime cash, U.S. alleges

During that search, Luangkhamdeng “had his head bowed and his hands around his head.”

He appeared “significantly stressed.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents found a secret compartment — commonly called a “trap” — near the rear cargo area.

“I know that these secret compartments are used regularly by drug trafficking organizations to smuggle illicit narcotics … into and out of the United States. The compartments are often wired with an electronic locking mechanism, and a complex sequence of buttons must usually be pushed in order to open the compartment,” Hickman said.

“Though quality can vary, these compartments are often sophisticated and (traffickers) pay the manufacturers of these compartments as much as $50,000 to build and install them. It is not unusual for such aftermarket compartments to have the capacity to secret 30 or more kilograms of illicit narcotics.”

In the Santa Fe, agents found a key with an aftermarket fob on it and tried to use it to open the compartment. It didn’t work.

So one of the officers “drilled a small hole in the underside of the vehicle to determine if there was anything secreted inside the compartment,” Hickman said.

“After drilling into the interior of the compartment, a white powdery substance could be seen on the end of the drill bit as it was removed from the compartment.”

The powder was field tested and determined to be MDMA, or “moon rock.”

The agents removed the compartment and found a total of 24.2 kilograms of MDMA, estimated to be worth about $360,000 US.

Hickman said the powder can be purchased in Canada for about $9,000 per kilogram, then sold south of the border for as much as $15,000 US. The transporters get paid about $1,000 to $2,000 per kilogram for their work.

“I also know that MDMA smuggled from Canada is often traded for cocaine, which is then smuggled back into Canada,” the special agent said. “Typically, the trade is two kilograms of MDMA for one kilogram of cocaine.”

While Luangkhamdeng initially asked the agents who arrested him for a lawyer, after three months in U.S. detention, he pleaded guilty last October to smuggling.

He is to be sentenced on May 4 and faces up to 20 years in prison and a $1-million fine.

Kbolan@postmedia.com

Blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

Twitter.com/kbolan

When I was reading through the U.S. court documents about the arrest of Phantom Secure owner Vincent Ramos, I noticed a mention of an arrest of another Metro Vancouver man last June.

That man, Saysana Luangphamdeng came after FBI agents seized a Phantom Secure phone south of the border and made contact with someone listed in the phone as “The Goat.”

There weren’t many details about Luangphamdeng’s case, so I started doing some additional research and found that he has already pleaded guilty and is slated to be sentenced in May. Just like Ramos, he appears to have no prior charges or convictions in B.C.

PLEASE NOTE: I am away as of Tuesday morning so am closing comments for a few days.

Here’s my story:

Three members of the notorious Greeks gang from Vernon have lost their appeals of their November 2012 murder convictions.

The B.C. Court of Appeal announced in a brief online statement that the appeals of gang leader Peter Manolakos and his associates Leslie Podolski and Sheldon Richard O’Donnell had all been dismissed.

The judges’ reasons for their decision were not released because they have not yet had time to edit out information about Crown witnesses who were subject to sweeping publication bans.

“This is a statement that will be posted on the court’s website concerning these appeals until it is replaced with redacted reasons for judgment,” the court’s public statement said. “The publication ban means that the full reasons for judgment must be sealed and only a redacted version complying with the ban may be released to the public.”

The statement said Crown prosecutors and defence lawyers in the case were provided with unedited reasons for judgement on Wednesday.

“There shall be a brief administrative hearing with counsel and a judge of the division to canvass the redactions required to allow for public release of reasons for judgment that comply with the terms of the publication ban,” the statement said.

Manolakos, Podolski and O’Donnell are three of five men convicted by a jury of various counts in the murders of David Marnuik, Thomas Bryce, and Ronald Thom in the Vernon area between July 2004 and May 2005.

Marnuik, who delivered drugs for the Greeks, was beaten to death with a baseball bat, a hammer and a blowtorch because he had taken off with some cash and the gang’s cellphone in the middle of a shift in the summer of 2004.

Bryce was a rival drug trafficker fighting the Greeks for turf when he was beaten with a wooden bat, then stomped, at a popular beach near Vernon in November 2004. He died 17 days later in hospital.

Thom was shot to death on May 31, 2005, because Manolakos mistakenly believed Thom had provided police with information about the Greeks’ criminal activity.

Manolakos was convicted of the first-degree murder of Thom as well as manslaughter in Marnuik’s death. O’Donnell was convicted of first-degree murder in the Thom slaying and second-degree murder in the deaths of Marnuik and Bryce. Podolski was found guilty of the first-degree murder of Marnuik.

All three are serving life sentences.

They appealed their convictions on 16 grounds, all of which were dismissed.

The appeal was heard at the Vancouver Law Courts last June before Justices Mary Saunders, Daphne Smith and Lauri Ann Fenlon.

The men were found to be part of a notorious drug trafficking gang operating in the North Okanagan called the Greeks, headed by Manolakos, who is of Greek heritage.

Manolakos provided gold rings and vests to his members, who also had tattoos of the word “ema” — which means “blood” in Greek — as well as the omega symbol. 

Jurors at the trial also heard the Greeks had different ranks within the organization, including “runners” like Marnuik who worked the drug lines at the street level, “bankers” who would supply drugs to the runners and collect the profits, and “enforcers” who would mete out punishment to those who broke the gang’s rules. 

kbolan@postmedia.com

twitter.com/kbolan

The founder of a Vancouver encryption company alleged to have supplied untraceable BlackBerry devices to criminals around the world has been denied bail in southern California.

Vincent Ramos had argued at a detention hearing in San Diego last week that he was not a flight risk despite facing racketeering and trafficking charges that could land him in jail for life if convicted.

U.S. District Court Magistrate Barbara Lynn Major denied Ramos’ application to be released on a $500,000 US bond pending his trial.

Ramos founded Phantom Secure Communications in Vancouver in 2008. The company has since branched out to the U.S., Australia, Dubai, Panama, Hong Kong and Thailand. 

The U.S. government alleges Ramos and his company “knowingly and intentionally conspired with criminal organizations by providing them with the technological tools to evade law enforcement and obstruct justice.”

When Ramos was arrested last month, U.S. authorities said the charges were the first of their kind against a company and its principals for aiding international crime groups through technology.

U.S. court records allege Phantom sold up to 20,000 BlackBerry and other devices to crime groups, including the notorious Sinaloa cartel in Mexico.

But family and friends of Ramos paint a very different picture of the 40 year old in reference letters filed in support of his bail application.

They describe him as a doting father of four, a hard-working businessman, and flag football coach.

His sister-in-law Shellaine Vicera said: “Vince, as we call him, is one of the most generous, helpful, kind-spirited individuals I have ever met in my life.”

“I am so lucky to have a brother-in-law who is understanding and is always willing to give a helping hand. He is truly a family man, is loving, caring and is always supportive of his family and children in anything they wish to do,” she said.

His Vancouver accountant Ash Katey said he had done the taxes for Ramos and Phantom Secure for 10 years.

“I found him to be an earnest, well-mannered young businessman, prepared to work hard to make his business grow and willing to learn new things involved in the growth of his business,” Katey said. “He did not want to take any shortcuts to gain any extra advantage out of a tax situation.”

Patricia Mendoza said in her letter of support that “the nature of the offences is very surprising and shocking as I have always known Victor to be intelligent, personable, hard-working.”

Ramos’ lawyer Michael Pancer said in court documents filed for the bail hearing that Ramos’ wife was willing to put their Richmond house up as collateral for a $500,000 US bond to secure his release.

And Pancer said Ramos was prepared to lease an apartment in San Diego and wear a GPS monitor.

“It is important to note that Mr. Ramos has no prior criminal record. He finds himself in trouble with the law for the very first time. Those who know Mr. Ramos best have expressed shock at hearing of his arrest,” Pancer said.

“While Mr. Ramos would concede the nature of the allegations are serious, as in any federal offence, Mr. Ramos is not charged with any crimes of violence, any crimes involving weapons, or any crimes involving threats of injuries.”

He said Ramos is “an educated man with familial and employment stability and a history of respect for the law.”

Ramos was born in Winnipeg in 1977 and moved with his family to Richmond at age four. He attended Kwantlen for two years and studied business before embarking on a career selling Amway products, Pancer said. He then worked for Rogers Cellular before deciding to go into business for himself.

“In 2008, he purchased his own servers and hired a tech person to install them. Mr. Ramos purchased licenses that were commercially available and already in use in the industry. He created no encryption programs, but used only those already on the market,” Pancer said. “We understand the security devices were like ones being used by our own government on BlackBerrys they purchase.”

Ramos has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

He will be back in court May 7 to set a date for his trial.

Kbolan@postmedia.com

Blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

Twitter.com/kbolan

I wrote a few stories about Richmond’s Vincent Ramos before being off for three weeks helping an ailing relative.

So I thought I would check on the status of his case on my first day back today.

Ramos was in court in San Diego last week trying to get bail. Family and friends wrote reference letters saying he is a great dad, a flag football coach and a hard-working businessman.

But U.S. authorities allege he built a global network with the sole purpose of aiding international crime groups including the Sinaloa cartel.

He was denied bail. 

Four others linked to his company, including Canadians Younes Nasri, Michael Gamboa and Christopher Poquiz, are also charged and remain fugitives.

Here’s my latest story:

 

The founder of a Vancouver encryption company alleged to have supplied untraceable BlackBerry devices to criminals around the world has been denied bail in southern California.

Vincent Ramos had argued at a detention hearing in San Diego last week that he was not a flight risk despite facing racketeering and trafficking charges that could land him in jail for life if convicted.

U.S. District Court Magistrate Barbara Lynn Major denied Ramos’ application to be released on a $500,000 US bond pending his trial.

Ramos founded Phantom Secure Communications in Vancouver in 2008. The company has since branched out to the U.S., Australia, Dubai, Panama, Hong Kong and Thailand. 

The U.S. government alleges Ramos and his company “knowingly and intentionally conspired with criminal organizations by providing them with the technological tools to evade law enforcement and obstruct justice.”

When Ramos was arrested last month, U.S. authorities said the charges were the first of their kind against a company and its principals for aiding international crime groups through technology.

U.S. court records allege Phantom sold up to 20,000 BlackBerry and other devices to crime groups, including the notorious Sinaloa cartel in Mexico.

But family and friends of Ramos paint a very different picture of the 40 year old in reference letters filed in support of his bail application.

They describe him as a doting father of four, a hard-working businessman, and flag football coach.

His sister-in-law Shellaine Vicera said: “Vince, as we call him, is one of the most generous, helpful, kind-spirited individuals I have ever met in my life.”

“I am so lucky to have a brother-in-law who is understanding and is always willing to give a helping hand. He is truly a family man, is loving, caring and is always supportive of his family and children in anything they wish to do,” she said.

His Vancouver accountant Ash Katey said he had done the taxes for Ramos and Phantom Secure for 10 years.

“I found him to be an earnest, well-mannered young businessman, prepared to work hard to make his business grow and willing to learn new things involved in the growth of his business,” Katey said. “He did not want to take any shortcuts to gain any extra advantage out of a tax situation.”

Patricia Mendoza said in her letter of support that “the nature of the offences is very surprising and shocking as I have always known Victor to be intelligent, personable, hard-working.”

Ramos’ lawyer Michael Pancer said in court documents filed for the bail hearing that Ramos’ wife was willing to put their Richmond house up as collateral for a $500,000 US bond to secure his release.

And Pancer said Ramos was prepared to lease an apartment in San Diego and wear a GPS monitor.

“It is important to note that Mr. Ramos has no prior criminal record. He finds himself in trouble with the law for the very first time. Those who know Mr. Ramos best have expressed shock at hearing of his arrest,” Pancer said.

“While Mr. Ramos would concede the nature of the allegations are serious, as in any federal offence, Mr. Ramos is not charged with any crimes of violence, any crimes involving weapons, or any crimes involving threats of injuries.”

He said Ramos is “an educated man with familial and employment stability and a history of respect for the law.”

Ramos was born in Winnipeg in 1977 and moved with his family to Richmond at age four. He attended Kwantlen for two years and studied business before embarking on a career selling Amway products, Pancer said. He then worked for Rogers Cellular before deciding to go into business for himself.

“In 2008, he purchased his own servers and hired a tech person to install them. Mr. Ramos purchased licenses that were commercially available and already in use in the industry. He created no encryption programs, but used only those already on the market,” Pancer said. “We understand the security devices were like ones being used by our own government on BlackBerrys they purchase.”

Ramos has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

He will be back in court May 7 to set a date for his trial.

Kbolan@postmedia.com

Blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

Twitter.com/kbolan

A young Surrey man has been sentenced to two years in jail after being caught with a stash of fentanyl-laced pills that a judge said amounted to “over 1,000 potential death sentences.”

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Nigel Kent said that Jasondeep Johal was more than a street-level dealer given the volume of the deadly drugs he possessed when arrested in 2015.

And he said that Johal, 26, needed a substantial jail sentence for his conviction last November on three counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking.

“The principles of denunciation and deterrence of drug dealing in fentanyl demand a substantial jail sentence. Such incarceration would also acknowledge the harm done to the victims of the fentanyl crisis and to the community at large,” Kent said.

“The evidence in this case is sufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Johal was trafficking illegal drugs at a distributor level and not just as a street-level retailer,” Kent said. “The fact that the pills were counterfeit Oxycodone meant that Mr. Johal had access to a drug‑trafficking network capable of producing large amounts of such product.”

Johal was in a Jeep Cherokee when he was stopped by Richmond RCMP about 1:15 a.m. on Aug. 12, 2015. Police smelled “vegetative marijuana” and searched the vehicle.

Inside they found “a plastic bag containing 1,090 green-coloured pills, and stamped on one side with `80’ and `CDN’ on the other.”

“Later testing of the pills confirmed that each contained heroin, fentanyl and a derivative of fentanyl, all of which are controlled substances,” Kent said.

The Crown in the case sought a sentence of five years, while Johal’s lawyer asked for a term of just nine months.

Kent noted that Johal was a “youthful first-time offender” without any prior criminal record.

“He has a wide circle of family and friends who are supportive of him and who will assist him with obtaining employment and staying on the right path in the future,” the judge said.

But he also said that Johal supporters who wrote reference letters didn’t explain how “a person of supposedly good character, became involved in the drug trade or why he was trafficking 1,090 pills containing fentanyl, a pernicious substance that has caused widespread death and misery in British Columbia for several years.”

Some of the letter writers have criminal records, Kent noted, and others “have been in the company of known gang associates or persons suspected in illegal drug transactions” according to police.

While Johal himself addressed the court, he “provided no explanation how he became involved in the drug trade, or what the extent of that involvement might have been,” Kent said.

“There is no evidence that he was himself a drug addict or that he was dealing drugs to support his own habit. While he purported to apologize, he did not actually admit to any criminal conduct let alone acknowledge the harm he may have caused to the community.”

He said that even though Johal claimed to be a changed man, “nothing in his demeanour, or tone and content of expression conveyed sincere remorse.”

Kent said that the normal sentencing range for a street-level fentanyl trafficker is now 18 months to three years in jail.

Kent also imposed a period of two years probation on Johal, as well as a DNA order and a 10-year firearms ban.

Read the ruling here:  

kbolan@postmedia.com

vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

twitter.com/kbolan

A Surrey man with no prior record has been sentenced to two years for trafficking fentanyl. That is in the middle of the range that the B.C. Court of Appeal established last year for street-level dealers in the deadly drug. Some have gotten off easier – Ajay Joon got probation and no jail time.    

And Walter McCormick got a 14-year-sentence in January 2017 for a much larger quantity of fentanyl.  

Here’s my story on the latest sentencing:

EVERETT, Washington — For more than 30 years, the families of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook have waited for answers in their unsolved murders.

The young Victoria-area couple was visiting Washington state in November 1987 when they were found slain in two separate locations.

On Wednesday, the Snohomish County Sheriff’s office released new details of a description of the person they believe was behind the  killings of Van Cuylenborg, 18, and Cook, 20.

High school sweethearts, Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook, vanished on a trip to the Seattle in 1987. Their bodies were found a few weeks later in separate locations in Washington state.\

The new suspect information comes from technology called Snapshot DNA phenotyping which has been used on DNA police collected during their investigation.

“Jay and Tanya were brutally murdered and more than three decades later, their killer has yet to be brought to justice,” Sheriff Ty Ternary of Snohomish County said at a news conference in Everett on Wednesday.

“We hope this new technology will help us positively identify a suspect and finally provide answers to their families.”

Victoria couple Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook were murdered in 1987 in Washington State. On Wednesday, police released an image of a potential suspect in the unsolved killings that was created by Snapshot DNA phenotyping. The suspect aged 25, 45 and 65.

 He said detectives from both Snohomish and Skagit County hope the public can provide new tips that will lead to the identification of a suspect.

“We are looking for anyone who knows something related to the case, or can identify a person of interest from the Parabon DNA predictions and images,” said Jeff Miller, the sheriff’s department captain of investigations. “Maybe you were too afraid to come forward at the time, or thought someone else would. Now is the time to share what you may have seen or heard.”

New technology suggests the killer is a white male, with hazel or green eyes, possibly freckles, and possibly balding. He could have been heavier or lighter than the images created, Miller said.

Miller said that the image his department released is not a photograph but a composite sketch. He hopes someone knows someone “similar” but not necessarily identical to image.

“It is not 100 per cent accurate,” he said. 

Snohomish County Cold Case Detective Jim Scharf, left, presents new images rendered using phenotype technology of a potential suspect in the unsolved case of the 1987 double homicide of Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg during a press conference in Everett, Washington on Wednesday, April 11, 2018.

At the news conference, Cook’s sister, Laura Baanstra, spoke about the tragic loss of her brother calling it a calculated crime. She urged anyone with information to call the authorities.

“For the sake of my brother Jay, call it in,” she said. Family and friends are now offering a $50,000 Canadian reward if the information provides a DNA match with the suspect.

Baanstra said she hasn’t been able to look at the image yet of the person who may have killed her brother. Her husband Gary said it is shocking.

Det. Jim Scharf, who has worked on the double murder case for years, said the homicides happened between Nov, 18 and Nov. 21, 1987. 

“The person who did this came prepared to do a brutal crime,” said Scharf.

Laura Baanstra, center, a sister of 1987 homicide victim Jay Cook, speaks at a press conference held in Everett, Washington on Wednesday, April 11, 2018 in which new images, digitally rendered with phenotype technology, were presented of what the murder suspect possibly looks like. The families of victims Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg announced they are offering a $50,000 reward to anyone that can solve the mystery of the killer’s identity until the end of 2018.

Two years after the terrible crime, investigators provided details of the case to a Province reporter.

The Oak Bay Secondary grads left their Victoria homes on Nov. 18, 1987, for a trip to Seattle. They were driving a brown 1977 Ford window van owned by Cook’s dad. They crossed the Juan de Fuca strait to Port Angeles by ferry.

The plan was to buy furnace parts for Cook’s family business, sleep in the van near the former Kingdome stadium, then travel back to Canada the next day.

The couple bought a ticket for the Bremerton-Seattle ferry and are believed to have got on the boat. But they never arrived at their Seattle meeting.

And they were never seen alive again.

A missing-person report was filed two days later.

On Nov. 24, a man walking on an isolated road near Alger, south of Bellingham, discovered Van Cuylenborg’s body in a roadside ditch. She had been sexually assaulted and shot in the head.

A day later near a Bellingham pub, police found some surgical gloves and unused rounds of ammunition they believed were linked to the murders, as well as several pieces of Van Cuylenborg’s identification.

Nearby police found their locked van. Plastic binding ties the killer had used to tie up his victims were scattered around the van.

Cook’s battered body was found the next day in the bushes by the side of a bridge near Monroe, southwest of Bellingham. He was covered by a tattered light-blue blanket.

Over the years, police have had promising leads in the case.

In 1990, a lens from Van Cuylenborg’s camera was found in a Portland, Oregon, pawnshop.

In 2000, police suspected a serial killer who had been arrested and convicted in other murders might be behind their deaths. But he was cleared.

The murders were featured on the U.S. TV show Unsolved Mysteries. But still no arrest.

In 2015, a $25,000 reward was offered for information that would solve the case.

October 13 1989. Snohomish County Sgt. Rick Bart (left) and Det. Ron Perniciaro display plastic bindings used in killings of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook. The binding ties were scattered around Cook’s van. The ties were of the kind used to bind together bundles of electrical wire. They make excellent handcuffs, noted Panzero.  

November 25 1987. Search & Rescue squad from Mt. Vernon, Washington search area where body of 18-year-old Saanich resident Tanya Van Cuylenborg was found on a lonely road near Alger, Washington.

December 5 1987. Skagit County Sheriff Gary Frazier examines Jay Cook’s 1977 Ford van in which he and his girlfriend Tanya Van Cuylenborg were on their way to Seattle. Cook’s 1977 bronze-coloured Ford van was found abandoned in Bellingham parking lot a week after the couple went missing. 

The Province, November 26 1987, page 3. 

kbolan@postmedia.com

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