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B.C. man aided Indian villagers. A man who bragged to undercover U.S. police officers that he imported 36 tonnes of cocaine into B.C. has led a double life as a modern-day Robin Hood.
Authorities in California busted Harjeet Mann, 49, who hails from B.C., and two American men last month for conspiring to traffic 70 kilograms of cocaine.
But according to a report in The Asian Pacific Post, Mann and his alleged accomplices have hearts of gold.
"While the suspects face life in a U.S. jail and fines up to $4 million, their friends and family in their native villages [in Punjab, India] say the three were philanthropists who spent millions of rupees to construct roads, improve civic amenities and arrange marriages for the poor," said the article in yesterday's Post.
A press release on the big bust issued by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Bakersfield, Calif., said Mann, Jasdev Singh, 32, and Sukharj Dhaliwal, 38, all reside in Bakersfield.
"Mann indicated that during the past five years he had shipped approximately 36,000 kilograms of cocaine from Bakersfield to Canada," said the DEA release.
"In Canada, Mann's customers 'cut' the product for street sales.
"Mann claimed, 'I'm the biggest there is.' He also offered to sell the undercover officer 50-kilogram buckets of ephedrine, a precursor chemical used to manufacture methamphetamine, for $33,000 a bucket and told the undercover officer he smuggled the ephedrine into the United States from his native country of India," said the release.
But the poor people of Cheemna village know a different side of the three men.
"Ever since they have settled in the USA, they have been generously spending lakhs [hundreds of thousands] of rupees every year on construction of village roads, public urinals and marriages of poor girls, besides giving donations for religious causes," Amarjit Singh, former member of the Cheemna council, told media in India, the Post reported.
"They are frequent visitors here and no one can even imagine them as narcotics smugglers."
The three men face a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.
"The cocaine trade is alive and well in British Columbia," RCMP media liaison Acting Staff-Sgt. Tim Shields told The Province.
"We all as a society have to do whatever we can to try and take this cocaine off our streets.
"It makes its way into our schools and into the lives of young people," said Shields.
"It gets turned into crack cocaine, which is a highly addictive, highly destructive drug."
Shields said he was not aware of any criminal involvement by anyone named Harjeet Mann.
The Province
Published: Friday, July 11, 2008
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