For the second time in little more than five years, police seized a vessel off the Pacific coast and found million of dollars worth of illicit drugs, apparently destined for distribution in Canada.
And for the second time in five years, the owner and employees of the ship were set free, without ever facing the inside of a courtroom.
Back in 2001, the ship in question was the Western Wind, owned by one Phil Stirling, who had previously pleaded guilty to five cocaine conspiracy-related charges and was sentenced to five years in prison.
The Western Wind was stopped by American authorities in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and Stirling and three other men aboard the vessel were arrested. However, since the boat was bound for Canada, the Americans handed the men over to Canadian authorities.
After considering a variety of charges, the authorities released all four men, and that was the last we heard of them until earlier this year.
On May 22, the RCMP seized the MV Bakur, a 47-metre fishing vessel registered to none other than Phil Stirling, and arrested Stirling and four other men. Evidently impressed with their work, the police invited photographers to take pictures of some of $6.5 million worth of marijuana found on board, and made statements linking the event with organized crime.
The men were charged with drug-related offences, but before they could make their way to court, the Crown entered stays of proceedings on all charges and set the men free.
According to Robert Prior, regional director of the federal office of public prosecutions, the evidence seized would not likely be admissible in court and there would therefore be little likelihood of convictions. A defence lawyer added that there was some doubt about whether police had compiled sufficient evidence to justify a search of the Bakur.
That might be understandable if this were the first time such a thing happened, or if police were operating on the fly, with little time to get their affairs in order. But as we know, this is the second time a major drug bust went bust, and the police had plenty of time to gain the necessary evidence.
After all, police had been tracking the Bakur since October 2005, and knew that it left Halifax in December 2005, headed down the coast, through the Panama Canal and up the coast to Vancouver Island. Surely they could have amassed sufficient evidence to justify a search after more than six months of surveillance.
And if the way in which the search was executed was the problem -- the first search was, incidentally, conducted by people from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans instead of the police -- then the question remains why police couldn't have executed it properly given that this wasn't the first time they had dealt with a drug-laden ship.
Of course Stirling and the other men might not have been found guilty of anything even if their cases went to trial. But that is beside the point. The fact is, we expect the police to make seizures and arrests properly, and only if they have sufficient evidence. It's time for a full accounting of what went wrong in this and other events, so we can ensure no further drug busts go bust.