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The downtown Windsor Superior Court of Justice building. Photo by Doug Schmidt /Windsor Star
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A trucker from Winnipeg has admitted to smuggling cocaine into Canada at the Ambassador Bridge, where officers found bricks of the illicit drug hidden in a shipment of hot tubs.
Harpreet Singh, 31, pleaded guilty at the Superior Court of Justice in Windsor last week to smuggling nearly 30 kilograms of cocaine into Canada on Aug. 1, 2022.
“These types of cases usually involve lengthy penitentiary terms,” Federal Drug Prosecutor Richard Pollock told the Star after the hearing.
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“The Supreme Court of Canada has held that drug trafficking is a violent crime and that these types of hard drugs pose a significant danger to the community.”
The judge requested a pre-sentence report for the offender and scheduled May 17 as the sentencing date.
Canada Border Services Agency officers pulled truck drivers Harpreet Singh and Narinder Singh in for secondary inspection on the U.S. side of the border at about 1:23 a.m. on Aug. 1, 2022.
Both truckers were on their way back from a delivery trip assigned to them by a Winnipeg-based transport company. During that trip, the drivers collected a shipment of hot tubs in Arizona bound for Hamilton, Ont.
Officers conducting the search at the international border crossing uncovered a blue duffel bag stashed in the cab of the truck containing several wrapped bricks of cocaine.
The total weight of the cocaine seized was 29.8 kilograms, with a wholesale value between $33,000 and $37,000.
Both truckers were taken into custody, but the case against Narinder Singh was later dismissed. He was described as quiet and naïve, having denied any knowledge of the duffel bags’ contents during his arrest, according to an agreed upon statement of facts read in court by Pollock on Jan. 16.
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A criminal search warrant allowed investigators to comb through the electronic devices seized during the arrest.
Text messages on Harpreet’s phone — sent just days before the California assignment — revealed discussions about the price of “powder.”
GPS data showed the truck had bypassed rest areas, restaurants, gas stations, and delivery locations along the “licit” route it was supposed to travel.
Instead, the truck made three stops: an empty lot in Firebaugh, California; a residential neighbourhood in Mission Viejo, California; and commercial area in New Haven, Indiana.
On top of that, the trucking company was unable to verify the drivers’ GPS location during the trip due to a bug with the electronic logging device — a recurring issue with this particular truck.
Officers later learned that Harpreet did not hold a valid driver’s license, which had been suspended by the province of Manitoba a couple months before his arrest.
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“It’s always important to stop drugs that come into Canada from the United States,” Pollock told the Star.
By pleading guilty, Harpreet has forfeited his right to a trial. He will appear at the Superior Court of Justice in Windsor on May 17 for sentencing.