COCAINE MULES CARRIED 140 KGS TO B.C. ON FOOT

Man Says Osoyoos Was Used As Crossing Point For Drugs

A Mexican man arrested in the U.S. last year and linked to a
$200-million Cdn drug-money laundering scheme has admitted he helped
smuggle cocaine to B.C. using couriers who hiked across the border to
Osoyoos.

Adalberto Silva-Rivas shipped at least 140 kilograms of cocaine across
the Canada-U.S. border during a five-month period in 2002, according
to a plea agreement between the drug dealer and U.S. prosecutors. The
agreement was obtained by The Vancouver Sun.

Silva-Rivas is a Mexican national who had been deported from El Paso,
Tex. in 1996. He was living in the small town of Mattawa, in eastern
Washington state, when he was arrested by U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration agents on June 17 last year.

Charged with money laundering and cocaine trafficking in the U.S., he
was facing two life sentences and a fine of up to $4.2 million.

In the plea agreement he signed March 31, he has agreed to cooperate
with U.S. and Canadian authorities in exchange for a 12-year prison
sentence and forfeiture of $200,000, a Camaro car, and two trucks.

He also has agreed to testify against a number of co-accused at trials
in Canada and the U.S. He is named as an unindicted co-conspirator in
cocaine trafficking charges filed last month in Vancouver provincial
court.

He is expected to be sentenced June 28 in U.S. District Court in
Spokane, where the plea agreement was filed.

The agreement says he and co-accused Rafael Magana Chipres arranged
for drug couriers to smuggle multi-kilogram shipments of cocaine up to
three times a month from a wooded area near Oroville, Wash., to
Osoyoos, south of Penticton.

Once the cocaine arrived in Canada, Silva-Rivas allegedly sold it to
Jose Donaldo Lopez-Guzman and Tho Anh Khuc, who are respectively
charged in Vancouver with importing and trafficking cocaine.

The plea agreement alleges that Silva-Rivas gave the Canadian currency
from the sale of the cocaine to Dat Tien (Frank) Tran and his wife Thi
Bac Hoa (Kim) Phan, who have been charged with importing and
trafficking cocaine in Canada and are charged with trafficking and
money-laundering in the U.S.

Tran and Phan, in turn, allegedly directed Thanh Thi Tuyen Tran, a
Vietnamese national living in Seattle, to give U.S. currency to
Silva-Rivas' brother Uriel or Chipres, who then paid the drug couriers
and the Mexican supplier of the cocaine, the court document says.

The plea agreement says police raided a "stash house" in a Vancouver
suburb on Sept. 12, 2002, and seized almost five kilograms of cocaine.
Adolpho Rivas-Viveros was at the house when police arrived, the court
document says.

Rivas-Viveros is among the unindicted co-conspirators named in the
cocaine trafficking charges filed last month in Vancouver provincial
court against Lopez-Guzman, Tran, Phan, Khuc, Van Doan Ha and Nhi Mui
Chiem.

A judge placed a ban on publication earlier this year on B.C. Supreme
Court proceedings but it was lifted Wednesday after an application by
The Vancouver Sun to set aside the ban.

According to B.C. Supreme Court documents, police seized almost
$800,000 from the trunk of a Porsche driven by Piotr Robert Sperka of
Vancouver on Dec. 13, 2002.

At the time, Sperka was a trader at Wolverton Securities in Vancouver.
He no longer works for the company and has not been charged.

A recent court judgment concerning the money seizure alleges that Phan
and Tran, both personally and through such corporate entities as
currency exchanges, laundered more than $200 million Cdn from the
trafficking of large amounts of cocaine and marijuana.

The drug investigation, conducted by the Organized Crime Agency of
B.C., was code-named Project Exchange Rate. A separate RCMP
money-laundering investigation, involving some of the same targets,
was code-named Project Blizzard. That investigation is wrapping up and
has not yet resulted in any charges.