CANADIAN DRUG COURIERS GET JAIL TIME

AUSTRALIAN COURT

young drug mules, promising to use his position in the Vice media empire to boost their budding careers — or, court heard, to destroy them.

The sentencing hearings support allegations the National Post revealed in February that Pastukhov used his position as music editor at Vice’s Canadian headquarters in Toronto to try to draw young journalists and artists into an international criminal enterprise.

The Post has previously documented claims from six people — in addition to the five arrested in Australia — who alleged that while Pastukhov was an editor at Vice he offered them money to carry suitcases to Australia. Those six, including four current or former Vice employees, told the Post they declined the offer.

Pastukhov has not been charged. He declined to comment for the Post’s original story and could not be reached for comment on the new allegations. Asked for comment on the sentencings, Vice Canada spokesman Chris Ball said in an email to the Post Friday that “upon hearing of specific allegations At a sentencing hearing Friday, court heard that the 27-year-old Slava Pastukhov — who has not been charged — was allegedly a central figure in recruiting drug runners. against this former employee we took immediate action and terminated this employee.” Ball also noted that “we filed a police report earlier this year,” after publication of the Post’s story. The Australian court heard confirmation that the Canadian end of the smuggling operation is under a police investigation.

The four young Canadians, arrested at Sydney airport in 2015, all pleaded guilty to importing commercial quantities of cocaine.

Jordan Gardner, 27, a Toronto electronic music artist who was Pastukhov’s roommate and the subject of a profile in a Vice publication, and Kutiba Senusi, 24, a Montreal event-planner who, according to evidence presented in court, had a contact for Pastukhov saved on his phone, were sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison, including time served.

Robert Wang, 25, a former Vice intern who was trying ingratiate himself with Pastukhov to boost his career, was sentenced to 6 1/2 years; Nathaniel Carty, 23, a New York-based model who says he was recruited at a Vice party in Toronto, was given a 5 1/2-year sentence.

Together they carried 37 kilograms of cocaine in 81 tightly sealed packages, hidden in the lining of eight checked bags.

“Each lacked maturity and insight when they committed these offences,” Judge Dina Yahia said in New South Wales District Court. “These offenders were exploited by people who were ruthless, persistent and manipulative in recruiting them.”

A fifth person — Canadian Porscha Wade, 20, the only female in the group — has not yet settled her case. Though she has pleaded guilty, she has recently changed lawyers and is exploring an application to change her plea to not guilty, court heard. Her scheduled sentencing was postponed.

Court heard of various forms of inducement to keep the plot moving, including threats when the drug couriers tried to back out of the plan.

Wang was a graduate of the prestigious Ivey Business School at London’s Western University with ambition for a career in the music industry. From July to October 2015, he interned at Vice. Though he worked in Vice’s sales department, his passion was hip-hop music and court heard he went out of his way to ingratiate himself to Pastukhov, Vice Canada’s influential music editor.

Pastukhov told Wang he could help him break into the music industry through his role at Vice, and a month after Wang’s internship ended, Pastukhov tried to exploit Wang’s veneration, court heard.

According to evidence presented in court, he was invited to Pastukhov’s apartment in early December 2015, where he was introduced to Carty, a model with whom Pastukhov was friends. (Carty told court he had been recruited into the scheme by Pastukhov while at a Vice party shortly before.)

Pastukhov told Wang and Carty that a week earlier he and a young Toronto hip-hop artist had made the same drug-smuggling trip he was now proposing they take, and that the operation was “foolproof,” court heard.