B.C. woman on trial in Montreal for smuggling

A jury at the Montreal courthouse has begun hearing evidence in a case against a Vancouver woman charged with trying to smuggle more than seven kilograms of heroin into Canada through the airport in Dorval.

During the Crown’s opening statement on Tuesday, prosecutor Anne-Marie Manoukian told the jury that Serena Khavita Narinesingh, 28, left Kigali, Rwanda, on a flight on July 16, 2015, and arrived at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Dorval the following day.

Her itinerary included layovers in Zurich and Brussels and when she arrived at Dorval, she learned that her suitcases were delayed.

She stayed at a Best Western Hotel while waiting for her suitcases to be located.

When her suitcases were found the following day, an airline employee handed them over to a Canada Border Services Agency officer for an inspection.

It turned out both suitcases had false bottoms and, Manoukian said, when they were taken apart the CBSA and RCMP found 7.7 kilograms of heroin that was 39 per cent pure and mixed with other items including caffeine.

The prosecutor told the jury they will hear evidence that while Narinesingh waited for news about her luggage, she met with two men at her hotel, including one who is only known as “Moe” to police involved in the investigation.

The prosecutor told the jury they will hear from seven witnesses during the trial, including a Montreal police expert on the heroin market in Montreal. The jury — composed of seven women and five men — will also be shown video images of Narinesingh, recorded by security cameras, while she was at Trudeau airport and while she was at her hotel.

The RCMP also seized two phones from the accused that contain messages that will be pertinent to the trial.

The first witness to testify, Konstantinos Tsambarlidis, the CBSA officer who discovered the false bottoms on both of Narinesingh’s bags, said she told him she was “a nanny from B.C.” when he asked what her occupation was. The inspection of her suitcases was conducted the day after she arrived in Montreal and she was present while it happened.

She agreed to hand over keys to small locks that prevented Tsambarlidis from opening the suitcases.

Once they were open, Tsambarlidis said the first thing that caught his attention was how lightly both suitcases were packed.

“I noticed there were very few items inside the bags. There was very little clothing,” he said, adding he emptied both and placed one hand on the interior of the bottom of one suitcase and his other hand on the exterior.

He said he knew something was amiss because he could not feel his fingers through the soft material.

Tsambarlidis said he called in his superior, CBSA Superintendent Kaitlin Steen, to assist and she used a sharp instrument to penetrate the bottom of one of the suitcases and trace amounts of white powder that smelled like vinegar fell out of the hole she made.

Narinesingh was placed under arrest and, minutes later, she was informed that a test run on the powder indicated it was heroin.

Tsambarlidis said that when questioned, Narinesingh told Steen she had travelled to Kigali for a vacation and to see a man she had been in an online relationship with during the previous year. When the Vancouver resident was asked why she chose to land in Montreal on her return to Canada, she initially said she wanted to look in on her ailing father, but later changed her story and said she wanted to visit friends.

Narinesingh is charged with importing heroin into Canada and possession with intent to traffic. The trial resumes Wednesday.