Three Indo-Canadians acquitted of smuggling heroin in bats and balls
April 6th, 2010 - 11:06 am ICT by IANSBy Gurmukh Singh
Toronto, April 6 (IANS) A court here has acquitted three Indo-Canadians on charges of smuggling heroin worth millions of dollars in cricket bats and balls from India.
Arundeep Sood, Charanbir Dhillon and Gurdeep Boparai and their two accomplices, who were acquitted earlier, were charged with smuggling the contraband hidden in cricket bats and balls imported from India in March 2007. But the Ontario superior court here acquitted them of smuggling charges as the prosecution failed to produce key evidence, the judge said delivering the verdict.
When on a tip-off in March 2007 that heroin was being smuggled on a flight from India in cricket bats and balls, police borrowed 20 bats from a local store to secretly replace them with those carrying the contraband in the consignment.
When the consignment landed in Toronto, custom officials seized 20 cricket bats and 12 balls. When a bat was broken with a crow bar, they found some heroin inside it. In total, they allegedly seized 3.5 kilogrammes of heroin worth more than $5.1 million hidden in bats and balls. Police kept the original bats and put the susbtitute bats in the consignment.
When the smugglers picked up the consignment, police followed them. They kept a watch on them and saw them trying to get the contraband out of the bats (substituted).
They were arrested, and the substitute bats seized from them. Next day, police returned 18 of the 20 bats to the store, keeping two which “were not in their original condition” to produce as evidence. But when the trial began, the judge found the marks on the substitute bats (kept by police) unreliable.
The other remaining 18 substitute bats could not be produced as evidence because the store had already sold them.
“The evidence of the condition of the substitute bats before and after the controlled delivery is so fraught with issues of reliability that it would be dangerous to make a finding of guilt,” the court said, acquitting the Indo-Canadians.
Apart from bats and balls, marble slabs have also been used to smuggle drugs from India into Canada.
(Gurmukh Singh can be contacted at gurmukh.s@ians.in)
- Drugs in bath-towel shipment from India seized - Jan 28, 2011
- Huge cache of drugs seized in Kathmandu - Jul 05, 2010
- Tombstone used to smuggle drugs into Canada! - Jan 27, 2010
- Indian driver held in US for record cocaine haul - Sep 10, 2010
- Punjabi female attendant with Air Canada jailed for cocaine smuggling - Dec 21, 2010
- 168 kg of heroin seized in Australia - Nov 02, 2010
- 10 kg heroin seized in Punjab, 3 held - Feb 02, 2011
- Biggest date-rape drug seizure by Canada - Jan 27, 2011
- Dubai Customs foils bid to smuggle heroin - Jul 13, 2010
- 25 years later, Canada offers $25,000 to each Kanishka victim family - Oct 23, 2010
- Indo-Canadian doctor held on drugging, rape charges - Feb 21, 2011
- Deepak Obhrai re-appointed Canada's parliamentary secretary - May 26, 2011
- Hashish smuggling bid foiled in UAE - Jan 27, 2011
- Canada sending dossier on fraud immigration agents to Punjab - Sep 26, 2010
- Drugs worth Rs.8 crore seized, two held in Bengal - Feb 07, 2012
Tags: 1 million, accomplices, balls, canadians, consignment, cricket bats, crow bar, custom officials, dhillon, guilt, gurdeep, heroin, indo, key evidence, local store, ontario superior court, prosecution, reliability, smugglers, sood