U.S. JUDGE WARNS INDO-CANADIAN YOUTH ABOUT DRUG-TRANSPORT RISKS

SEATTLE -- Judge Robert Lasnik is so disturbed by the growing number
of young Indo-Canadians risking their freedom to transport drugs
across the Canadian-U.S. border that he wants to send a loud, clear
message.

"Don't go for the easy money. Don't go for the quick reward.
Invariably, these are people who say that they have financial
pressure, but their family would have been happy to help them out,"
said the chief U.S. District Court judge for western Washington.

Starting about five years ago, Lasnik began to see more and more young
Indo-Canadians standing before him facing long prison sentences.

He estimates about half of the Canadian drug traffickers in court here
are from the Indo-Canadian community.

The picture here mirrors the growing problem of Indo-Canadian gang
violence in recent years that has led to high-profile murders and shootouts.

"Predominantly I see people who are couriers, who either have a
profession of driving trucks that bring them across the border back
and forth or who have been approached by somebody in the community and
asked to do them a favour and in return get some amount of money,"
Lasnik said.

Some of the defendants claim they were to be paid only one or two
thousand dollars for ferrying large quantities of marijuana into
Washington state.

Increased enforcement along the U.S. border has led to increased
arrests, meaning more Canadians facing mandatory minimums in U.S. jails.

"Invariably I see people who have no criminal record, who have never
been in trouble in Canada or in the U.S. before who are suddenly
facing very long, onerous prison terms in the United States," Lasnik
said. "These people often say they had no idea they could face such
severe prison sentences. They thought they would never get caught, but
if they did get caught that it was a relatively minor transaction,
especially if it involved marijuana, which is not considered such a
serious drug in Canada."

But things are different down here, where 90 to 95 per cent of those
charged with drug offences plead guilty to try to get more lenient
sentences.

If they go to trial, they could face long mandatory minimum sentences,
Lasnik said.

"Ordinarily they will face for a fairly large amount of marijuana a
five-year mandatory minimum term. For methamphetamine and cocaine, it
might be a 10-year mandatory minimum term or even a 20-year mandatory
minimum term, depending on the quantities involved," Lasnik explained.

He said he feels bad for distraught relatives sitting in the courtroom
to hear the fate of their loved ones. "I often at sentencing have a
room full of relatives -- parents, wives, children, extended family --
who are devastated about the fact that their son, husband, father,
uncle is going to be going to prison for several years.So I ask both
the family members who are present and the individual when they get
out of prison to please spread the word in these communities and
around Vancouver that this is a very devastating event, not just for
the individual that gets sent to prison, but for the family that is
also suffering. And that they should get out into the community and
warn young people especially and all sorts of people."

About 85 Canadians were nabbed on drug charges crossing into
Washington in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, consistent with last
year, but up considerably from two years ago.

Lasnik said the disproportionate number of Indo-Canadians getting
caught could be because of the community's long-time involvement in
the transportation industry.

"I think most of the people I have seen have been in Canada for a
number of years. They are people who are fairly well established. They
have done some schooling in Canada. They have some jobs. But it is
obvious that the cross-border trucking industry is heavily skewed
towards the Indo-Canadian population in terms of who owns them, who
drives them, and since that is a favoured method for getting drugs and
money across the border it seems to fall on them more heavily," he
said.

Indo-Canadian community leaders have been working through several new
organizations to warn youth of the consequences of getting involved in
the drug trade and gang life.

RECENT DRUG CASES INVOLVING CANADIANS:

- - Nov. 18 -- Aldergrove trucker Albert Nieboer, 53, was sentenced to a
year and a day in jail for bulk cash smuggling after being caught in
April trying to take almost $200,000 US into B.C.

- - Nov. 4 -- Sarbjit Singh Bassi, an Abbotsford commercial trucker, was
sentenced to four years in a U.S. jail for entering Washington in
January with 290,000 ecstasy pills and 200 kg of ephredrine, used to
make crystal meth.

- - Oct. 14 -- Ravinderjit Kaur Shergill, who is also known as
Ravinderjit Kaur Puar, pleaded guilty to ecstasy trafficking in
Washington state.

- - Oct. 13 -- Rupinder Gill and Kiranpal Sandhu of Surrey were charged
in connection with a complex marijuana and ecstasy smuggling ring that
had a warehouse near Seattle used for drug transactions, U.S. agents
say. The case has yet to go to trial.

- - Oct. 21 -- Paul Shedeger, 68, of Surrey, and Erich Kreppenhofer, 60,
of Abbotsford appeared in U.S. District Court in Seattle after customs
officers seized 10 hockey bags full of marijuana stashed in a horse
trailer.

- - Feb. 28 -- A Fraser Valley man was stopped in an SUV charged with
possessing 169 kg of cocaine. Douglas Bryan Spink, 33, was charged
after the drugs were found by Monroe, Wash. police in the largest
seizure in Snohomish County's history.