Drug kingpin pleads guilty in smuggling

PORTLAND – The leader of a smuggling operation that brought marijuana, LSD and Ecstasy from Canada into Maine pleaded guilty Friday to engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise.

Robert Shimek, 29, will face 20 years to life in prison when he is sentenced in U.S. District Court in two months.

The Minnesota native, who is accused of masterminding the shipments of millions of dollars of drugs, was a fugitive for seven years before he was arrested in June in Innisfail, Alberta.

Shimek pleaded guilty to a federal charge typically leveled against gang lords and organized crime bosses. He also faces drug charges in Minnesota, where he has been wanted since 1994.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Toof acknowledged that Shimek, who supplied drugs to people at Grateful Dead, Phish and Widespread Panic concerts, didn’t bear much resemblance to a big-city crime boss.

“When you think of organized crime, you think of John Gotti. This organization was cut from a different cloth,” Toof said.

The drugs originated in Canada and were carried in backpacks across unguarded portions of Maine’s 611-mile border with Canada, investigators said.

From there, the hikers were picked up by cars and taken to a stash house in Caribou, where the drugs were unpacked and sorted, then distributed at concerts up and down the East Coast, investigators said.