By Mata Press Service

A team of Mounties is trying to unravel the inside workings of a massive criminal syndicate operating drug pipelines from India to Canada and the United States.
 
Working with Indian police, the team is focusing its investigations into the Western connections of three Indo-Canadians who were arrested late last year with huge amounts of heroin and party drugs destined for the North American market.

The Canadian police officers interrogated the suspects in late December at New Delhi’s Tihar jail complex - one of the largest prisons in the world which houses about 13,000 prisoners.

“The Canadians had applied for court permission (to question the trio) and after that they conducted interviews in Tihar. After their investigations, they said that these cases were huge even by American and Canadian drug mafia standards,” Ravindra Yadav, deputy commissioner of police in South Delhi told Indian media.

The three are:
 #)  Gurdish Toor, 29, from Surrey B.C. – Toor was arrested in Delhi last August in connection with the seizure of 100 kilograms of ephedrine worth C$24 million dollars that was destined for the North American markets. Police also seized three kg of hashish worth 100 million rupees (about C$2.4 million) concealed in a consignment of paintings headed for Canada and about 600 kg of white powdery drugs which have been sent for analysis.
 #)  Harjinder Singh Bassi from Brampton, Ont. -  Bassi and his associates were arrested last September 3 while trying to send a shipment of over 550 kg of ephedrine to Canada.
 #)  Rajinder Singh – Singh only identified as an Indo-Canadian was arrested last October after Indian police raided an underground laboratory manufacturing drugs with the help of Hong Kong nationals. Two tonnes of chemicals used in the manufacture of methamphetamine and laboratory equipment were also seized.

Ephedrine is a highly sought-after chemical precursor in the illicit manufacture of  Crystal Meth, Ecstasy and Ice that are popular at all-night dance parties such as raves and in nightclubs

The drug busts are among the biggest in India in recent times.

Canadian police, who interviewed Toor from Surrey, are now hunting for a man identified as “Carl Cassola” described as a vital link in the India-Canada pipeline.

Indian police allege that Toor was in constant touch with Cassola, also believed to be a Canadian national, who was staying at the Grand Hotel in Delhi’s Vasant Kunj area a month before the B.C. man was arrested. They said Toor’s phone records showed that he had sent several messages to Cassola.

Toor’s drug shipment was destined for Brampton, Ontario, where Bassi lived.

“The similarities are simply too many to ignore,” said Yadav. The Asian Pacific Post reported last year that Toor had allegedly told police that he cultivated marijuana in B.C., works with Asian drug smugglers in Canada and used import-export companies as fronts to ship drugs.

He entered India on a six month tourist visa in August 2004 and never returned to Canada. They said his parents and grandparents migrated to Canada in the early seventies.

Following his arrest, Indian newspapers have been questioning why Toor, who had been on the police radar for almost two years, was allowed to operate with impunity in the Doaba region of Punjab, where most Indo-Canadian migrants hail from.

Toor operated firms like Golden Shield Private Limited, Simran Rice and Blue Horse Trading Limited in the industrial city of Ludhiana. These firms were apparently dealing in export of rice and drugs to Canada and the United States. Police described the companies as fronts for the drug cartel.

Toor, police said, lived a lavish life spending up to 50,000 rupees (C$1,100) per day -  a fortune in India where the average income is less than $500 a year and had a fleet of luxury cars.

He also built a huge mansion and has amassed unaccounted land and properties, which police believe are the proceeds of crime.The lanky suspect had also obtained an export license from directorate of foreign trade, even though getting license is very difficult for genuine exporters.

With an annual turnover of around US$500 billion dollars, drug trafficking is the third largest business in the world, next only to petroleum and arms trade.

Narcotics agencies say India, wedged between two major drug-producing regions, the Golden Triangle and the Golden Crescent, is a major transit point for drug smuggling to the West where returns are lucrative.

During the last year, Indian law enforcement authorities have seized more than 800 kilograms of heroin in 2,833 cases nationwide.

Several of those cases involve Indo-Canadians.

The most recent arrest was in the industrial city of Ludhiana, where a Canadian national identified as Jasmel Singh, 44 was arrested last month with three briefcases loaded with heroin. Jasmel Singh has been living in Canada for the last 27 years and claims he was asked to carry the bags – which he never opened – by a friend. Last July, The Asian Pacific Post reported the arrest of a Vancouver-area couple near the town of Zirakpur, Punjab. Police said they found close to one million dollars worth heroin on them.

Police allege that Rajwinder Singh alias Raja and Paramjit Kaur had carved false cavities in the bags and spread a layer of carbon in an attempt to dodge sniffer dogs and airport X-ray machines. A few months earlier customs officials nabbed Gurwinder Singh Dhaliwal at the Raja Sansi airport in Amritsar for allegedly trying to smuggle over a million dollars worth heroin to Canada.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in an analytical report say heroin seizures originating in India have increased dramatically becoming the number one source/transit country to Canada.

Notably, heroin seizures from India accounted for approximately 19% of all heroin seizures in 2004 and jumped to 68% of all heroin seizures by 2005.

Various methods are used to import heroin into Canada such as postal and courier modes, air transport as well as by land via commercial or traffic vehicles. Particularly in the case of air passengers, an array of concealment methods are utilized to smuggle heroin that range from individuals swallowing the drug to modified suitcases, picture frames, rolling pins, statues and even hiding the heroin in a baby’s diaper bag.

India has also emerged as a source country for ketamine and other party drugs smuggled into Canada.

The RCMP report also identified Indo-Canadian criminal groups as high-level transporters of synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals from Canada to the U.S.