Ex-Vice Canada workers out on bail in drugs case
Accused of role in cocaine smuggling
TORONTO • A former Vice Canada editor along with one of his former colleagues at the youth-focused media company were released from jail on bail Friday into the waiting arms of their anxious and emotional families.
Both men are accused of arranging for large loads of cocaine to be smuggled into Australia, resulting in the arrest of five drug couriers at Sydney airport in 2015.
Yaroslav Pastukhov, 28, who mainly wrote under the name Slava Pastuk in his high-profile position as music editor with Vice’s Toronto operations and who was known online as Slava P, walked stiffly and swiftly away from Toronto’s Old City Hall court, clutching the waist of his tearful mother.
He declined to talk to the National Post as he left.
His co-accused, Ali Taki Lalji, 30, was hugged by his mother and father and other supporters; mother and son both wiped away tears.
He also declined to comment.
Both men face charges of conspiracy to import cocaine.
The judge’s reasons, their bail conditions and the evidence presented during their two-day bail hearing cannot be published at this time, by order of the court. Justice of the Peace Tina Wassenaar imposed a publication ban on the contents of the proceedings.
Pastukhov and Lalji were arrested Jan. 31.
The two started working together at Vice Canada in 2013. In 2016, Vice fired Pastukhov after fellow employees raised concerns about his actions.
Lalji started as a digital account manager at Vice and left in 2014. He worked in digital marketing at CBC before his most recent position as brand and content manager with The Supreme Cannabis Company, a Torontobased firm, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Lalji remains a Supreme employee, pending further information, a source at the company said, speaking on background.
“The allegations reported in the press relate to alleged activities which occurred many years prior to Mr. Lalji’s employment at Supreme,” said Scott Davidson, a spokesman for Supreme, in an official statement. “We have no further information or comment at this time.”
Pastukhov, in a black turtleneck and jeans, sat still and sombrely watched court. Lalji, in a white collarless shirt and beige khakis, became emotional when first meeting the gaze of his supporters in the public body of the court.
At the time of their arrests, the RCMP alleged the pair arranged for five young people — four Canadians and an American — to fly to Australia with cocaine hidden in their luggage in December 2015. All five were stopped and arrested at Sydney international airport after nearly 40 kilograms of cocaine was found in their suitcases.
All five pleaded guilty in Australia to importing commercial quantities of cocaine.
As previously reported by the Post, during Australian proceedings court heard that the couriers were recruited in Canada and travelled to Las Vegas, where they were given suitcases with packages of cocaine glued into the lining to take with them to Sydney. The Australian court heard the packages were for a Mexican drug cartel.
One of those couriers, Jordan Gardner, a Toronto electronic music artist who was Pastukhov’s roommate and the subject of a profile in a Vice publication, was sentenced to 71/2 years in prison and he remains in custody in Australia.
A close friend of Gardner’s — who is in contact with his family — told the Post that Gardner’s friends and family are “happy there’s going to finally, after many years, be justice for this.” They did not want their names published because some of the court testimony in Australia alleged threats directed at friends and family of some of the couriers when they tried to back out of the trip.
In 2017, the Post revealed detailed allegations from six other people — not those arrested in Australia — who said Pastukhov tried to recruit them as couriers. Many of them were young journalists or artists linked to Vice who claimed he offered them $10,000 to make the trip, but they declined. He has not been charged in relation to those claims and the allegations have never been tested in court.
Sgt. Penny Hermann, an RCMP spokeswoman, said earlier this week that, after the Post’s stories, Pastukhov legally changed his name in Ontario to Yari Farrow and relocated from Toronto to Montreal.
A trial date has not yet been set.