COURT SET TO CAP HUGE COKE-SMUGGLE SAGA

In a drug-smuggling case that has taken many strange twists and turns over
the years, Paulin Bolduc, who has links to the Medellin drug cartel, is to
be sentenced today in Sherbrooke.

The final chapter in the story of a man and his plans to smuggle one of the
largest quantities of cocaine ever brought into Canada is expected to be
written this morning.

Paulin Bolduc, 47, a leader in the conspiracy who has connections to the
Medellin drug cartel in Colombia, is to be sentenced today in Sherbrooke.

"It should be made into a movie," said crown prosecutor Paul Crepeau of the
case he started working on 13 years ago.

"It's the longest case I've been involved in, by far.

"It's also been one with many twists and turns."

Crepeau first became familiar with Bolduc in 1989 while working as the
Crown's counsel to police investigators seeking permission to wiretap and
conduct surveillance on people involved in a plan to smuggle Colombian
cocaine into Canada. The drugs were targeted for distribution in cities
like Montreal and New York.

Two years later, Crepeau was named prosecutor when Bolduc and 21 other
people were charged in the conspiracy.

But one of the first "twists" took place before anyone was charged.

The shipment of cocaine, which was being tracked by Surete du Quebec
officers, never made it to a Canadian shore.

On April 24, 1991, the Marine Transport, a cargo ship heading for New
Brunswick and carrying as much as 2,000 kilograms of cocaine, sank 20
kilometres off Cape Race, Nfld. Crew members were rescued by the Coast
Guard, brought to St. John's and arrested.

"I laughed," Crepeau said of learning about the sinking. "I mean, I had
been following that case for two years with the police. They kept telling
me, 'This boat's coming in,' and I'd think, 'Yeah, yeah, sure.' Then one
day someone tells me that the boat has come in but that it sank. It was a
laughable matter."

Months later, experts determined the Marine Transport broke into three
pieces after smashing into an iceberg. Only a third of the boat and 35
kilograms of cocaine were recovered. A diver was nearly killed while
looking for the drugs.

Based on the evidence presented in court, a judge eventually determined
there were at least 800 kilograms of cocaine on board when the ship sank.

Bolduc was arrested at his Massawippi home in the Eastern Townships shortly
after the ship went down.

He has been described by police as a businessman because of his real-estate
holdings in the Townships. But, Crepeau said, the only real job Bolduc was
known to hold was as a mechanic repairing Harley-Davidson motorcycles in a
Sherbrooke garage in the late 1970s.

During the 1980s, he traveled to South America often and it was there he
met with Paul Larue, an associate of Montreal's West End Gang who would
eventually be convicted of drug smuggling in Florida.

Larue turned informant while behind bars in the United States. He told
investigators Bolduc informed him there were 2,000 kilograms of cocaine -
worth between $800 million and $1 billion - on board the Marine Transport
as it was approaching Canada. He also explained Bolduc's Colombian
connections to the police.

"This is how Bolduc was established as a drug dealer (in Colombia)," said
Crepeau, who describes Bolduc as the pivot man in the smuggling operation.

"He made the contacts. From the beginning (of the case in question), he was
the one who got things done."

Those contacts would eventually provide another significant twist in the
Bolduc story.

While out on bail and awaiting trial, he fled Canada Nov. 26, 1993, using a
false passport. A man from the small northern town of La Malbaie was
convinced by relatives - who had ties to organized crime - to apply for a
passport he would never use. The man was paid $3,000 for his services.
Bolduc managed to insert his own photo in the passport.

The Sherbrooke trial continued without Bolduc. Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal
Bureau of Investigation tracked him down in Santa Marta, Colombia, a
village 700 kilometres north of Bogota. He was living in an apartment owned
by members of the Medellin drug cartel, a notoriously violent group once
led, in part, by the late Pablo Escobar.

"(Bolduc) switched apartments every two or three weeks and was followed,
traced and tracked by the FBI with wiretaps and tricks like that. It was
one of the most interesting parts of the file," Crepeau said.

Bolduc was returned to Canada in April 1995, in time for the last year of
what would be the longest criminal trial held in Sherbrooke.

In 1996, he was sentenced to 20 years and 10 months - the stiffest among
the nine people convicted in the case (most of the ship's crew were
deported to the Dominican Republic before the trial) - but appealed and won
a new trial.

The Quebec Court of Appeal determined his conviction was based mostly on
evidence admitted against Bolduc's co-conspirators while he was hiding in
Colombia.

After scoring a major legal victory, Bolduc gave yet another twist to his
story when he walked into the Sherbrooke courthouse on April 17, 2001, and
pleaded guilty before his second trial began.

The strategy might have been based on the likelihood he will spend very
little time behind bars no matter what Judge Michel Babin decides today.

Bolduc had already served one-sixth of his sentence and was in a halfway
house when the appeal court granted him a new trial Sept. 8, 1999.

Crepeau has asked that Bolduc receive another penitentiary sentence and
that the National Parole Board be left to sort out how much more time he
serves behind bars, if any.

Bolduc's lawyer, Michel Dussault, requested a conditional sentence of two
years less a day, to be served in the community, followed by three years of
probation.

Some of the co-conspirators convicted in the case are now out on parole but
have sentences that will carry on into the next decade. Crepeau argues it
is only fair that Bolduc be required to do the same.

If Bolduc is handed a lenient sentence, Crepeau said, "it would not serve
justice well. It would give the system five years of control over Mr.
Bolduc. If the judge doesn't send him back to jail, he will have served one
of the shortest sentences among the (co-conspirators)."