Documents link several drug cases Canadian ring appears tied to Maine busts

BANGOR – The recent arrests of 11 Canadians in what has been described as an international drug smuggling ring appear to be connected to half a dozen cases in U.S. District Court in Maine.

Court documents in one case pending in Portland strongly indicate that more than a dozen people involved in the operation have been arrested or indicted in Maine for moving tons of marijuana worth millions of dollars through the state.

Six people who have been sentenced to federal prison in U.S. District Court in Bangor also appear to have been involved in the operation, which began in fall 2003, according to court documents.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Perry, who prosecutes many of the drug cases in federal court in Maine, declined on Monday to comment on whether any cases related to the Canadian arrests had been prosecuted over the past three years. He also declined to say whether any cases related to the recent arrests in Canada are pending in Maine.

On April 20, 11 Canadians were arrested in New Brunswick and Quebec after an 18-month investigation of a drug ring that was bringing Ecstasy, methamphetamine and marijuana into Maine for distribution in metropolitan areas in the Northeast.

Court documents filed in Portland and Bangor, however, describe a marijuana operation almost identical to the one outlined last month by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The smugglers were moving at least 5 tons of drugs a year across isolated sections of the border between New Brunswick and Maine, Staff Sgt. Gary LeGresley of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said last month.

The New Brunswick-to-Maine route proved to be a major conduit for trafficking drugs including marijuana, methamphetamine and Ecstasy to Boston, New York and Philadelphia, he said.

A similar case with 11 defendants is pending in U.S. District Court in Portland. Six U.S. and five Canadian citizens were indicted in October on conspiracy, drug and money laundering charges by a federal grand jury.

Benjamin Pratt, 37, of Monkton, Vt., and Laurence Lieber, 55, of Brooklyn, N.Y., last month pleaded guilty to the charges. Court documents described the men as “couriers.”

The prosecution versions of events to which they admitted described the operation.

“The evidence would also show that the marijuana was manufactured in the Montreal area,” it states. “It was then shipped through Canada to the United States in upper New York, Vermont, and-or Maine. American couriers would then pick up the marijuana and deliver the marijuana to southern Maine, New Hampshire, or points farther south in New England. Other couriers would then transport the marijuana to Vermont, the New York City area, and other locations where it was distributed.”

The other men indicted in the case, Daniel Lapierre, 57, of Montreal, Quebec; Brent Santoro, 28, of Yorba Linda, Calif.; Cordell Lochin, 41, of New York; Thomas Blondet, 26, of New York; and Joseph Parsley, of Howard, Beach, N.Y., are scheduled to stand trial in federal court in Portland in June.

Two Caribou women were sentenced in October in federal court in Bangor for their part in what U.S. District Judge John Woodcock called a “major international drug conspiracy.”

Verna Haney, 44, and Linda Fortin, 43, were arrested near Van Buren in March 2003 with 141 pounds of marijuana in the back of a minivan. Border patrol agents saw two people on snowmobiles approach from the Canadian border and throw large hockey-type duffel bags into the back of the van.

Both women pleaded guilty to charges of possession of marijuana with the intent to distribute. Haney, who was sentenced to 27 months in prison, is incarcerated in Philadelphia. Fortin, who was sentenced to 29 months in prison, is incarcerated in Connecticut.

In addition to the women, four Canadians arrested over the past three years in Maine now are serving time in federal prison. The men were arrested in Aroostook County with large amounts of marijuana or large amounts of cash.

The 11 Canadians arrested last month in New Brunswick were charged with 82 counts of drug violations involving conspiracy to export drugs from Canada, conspiracy to traffic drugs, trafficking in illicit drugs and possession of drugs for the purpose of trafficking.

Sgt. Dan Nowlan, the RCMP officer in charge at Grand Falls and a member of the Regional Drug Unit in New Brunswick, has said that more arrests may come in the investigation, which the RCMP is conducting in conjunction with the U.S. Border Patrol, federal agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Bangor and Portland and ICE, an enforcement division of Homeland Security.

Canadian authorities in April said the drugs they seized were made in Quebec laboratories allegedly connected to the Hell’s Angels. The drugs, along with tons of marijuana, were being taken to New Brunswick where smugglers took it across the border into Maine at numerous sites from Edmundston to Perth-Andover, New Brunswick.

During the summer, the New Brunswick people involved in the operation would transport drugs by boat across waterways on the border. In the winter, the traffickers used snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles, officials said last month.

Those arrested, according to Nowlan, were responsible for smuggling 10,000 pounds of marijuana a year through the Maine-New Brunswick border.

If convicted in U.S. District Court in Portland, all 11 defendants face a minimum of five years in prison and a maximum of 40 and a fine of up to $2 million. The two men who pleaded guilty face the same penalties.

The Canadians arrested in New Brunswick, if convicted in Provincial Court there, face up to 10 years in prison.