Wed, Jan 8, 2014

http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2014/01/07/ex-mountie-turned-coke-smuggler-to-be-sentenced-in-seattle-friday/

His criminal nickname was Pony Tail and he went from being an undercover drug cop to an international cocaine smuggler.

The transformation of former B.C. Mountie Rapinder “Rob” Sidhu from law enforcement to criminal mastermind should be a key consideration when he is sentenced in a Seattle courtroom Friday, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Vogel.

“Rapinder Sidhu was a high-ranking member of a well-organized, long-running international conspiracy that was responsible for the transportation and exportation of enormous quantities of cocaine from the United States into Canada,” the prosecutor said in a just-filed sentencing memo.

Vogel said when Sidhu resigned in disgrace from the RCMP in 2003, “he organized and choreographed an entire cast of characters who moved enormous quantities of cocaine, with great success, thousands of miles.”

“Even more troubling, according to several of his co-conspirators, he exploited the violence of the criminal organizations with which he was allied to intimidate them and others into doing his bidding,” she said.

“He turned to his former adversaries in organized crime and sold them his specialized knowledge, with absolutely no regard for the outcome in his local community or the effect on society in general.”

She didn’t name any crime group in her 12-page memo, but in related cases, U.S. prosecutors have said the drug gang worked with B.C. Hells Angels.

Vogel submits that Sidhu got a big break when he negotiated a plea deal last October that recommends a sentence of between six and eight years for his role in smuggling hundreds of kilos of cocaine into Canada.

Normally someone with a leadership role in such a massive criminal operation would land in jail for more than 17 years, she said.

“It is important to note that the stipulated range of six to eight years’ imprisonment represents a hard-bargained compromise,” Vogel said, adding that the U.S. Attorney “believes that a sentence of eight years is the absolute minimum sentence that satisfies the law in light of the specific facts and circumstances of this case.”

She also said Sidhu is minimizing his involvement in the drug ring that was broken up in 2008 with dozens of arrests and indictments on both sides of the border.

“Sidhu and his defence counsel are working very hard to try to convince probation and this court that he was just a pawn in a scheme run by others,” Vogel noted.

“The truth, which cannot be ignored, is that unlike any of the other leaders in his vast scheme, Rapinder Sidhu was a former law enforcement officer. He was specially trained in investigating exactly the type of criminal he later became. He used his special knowledge and skills, obtained through that privileged position, to earn for himself and his criminal associates large sums of money in the international cocaine trade.”

Vogel said two drivers caught with a total of 478 kilograms of cocaine in 2007 and 2008 incidents both told police that Sidhu was their boss.

One of the drivers told police that Sidhu threatened him, saying: “I know your wife, your wife’s dad and family.”

“This driver accurately identified Sidhu from a photograph, and knew that his BlackBerry nickname was ‘Pony Tail,’ ” Vogel said.

Also troubling was Sidhu’s recruitment of a young border guard to allow drug shipments into B.C. Jasbir Grewal was later caught and sentenced to five years.

“He contributed to the corruption of a fellow law enforcement officer, a younger kid he knew from his home neighbourhood, who in turn sabotaged his own career and livelihood. Unlike Sidhu, the inspector has repeatedly expressed what appears to be sincere remorse,” Vogel said.

She said Sidhu’s sentence must reflect what others in the gang have received. Former Abbotsford resident and gang leader Rob Shannon got 20 years. Some of the drivers who Sidhu got to haul the drugs in an RV and minivan got 12 years, Vogel noted.

“Sidhu’s acceptance of responsibility has been marginal, and his attempts to re-cast his role as one of a pawn in this vast conspiracy are inconsistent with all the other facts gathered by this investigation,” she said.

Sidhu, 46, has two fraud convictions in B.C. and is wanted in Quebec for obstructing an officer. He was also charged and acquitted in B.C. of impersonating a homicide cop to illegally obtain addresses for the Bacon brothers from a police computer.

Sidhu had a company in B.C. called IMAX Investigational Group, but moved to Montreal in 2012 in the middle of his trial on the impersonation charge.

Vogel said in her sentencing memo that Sidhu’s “only reported assets are not in his name.”

Sidhu’s lawyer has also filed a sentencing memo with supporting documentation — including a letter Sidhu has written to U.S. District Court Judge Robert Lasnik.

But on Tuesday, Sidhu won a sealing order on the basis that his “privacy interest outweighs the general right of the public to know.”