Man jailed 20 years in U. S. prison for drug smuggling

A Brampton man has been sentenced to 20 years in a U.S. prison for his role in a smuggling operation that sent more than $130 million worth of drugs between Canada and the United States.

Harinder Dhaliwal was sentenced Wednesday in a Buffalo, N.Y. court on a charge of conspiracy to export drugs.

Prosecutors say the operation involving Dhaliwal and at least six other people used several international bridges, including Niagara border crossings, to smuggle cocaine from the U.S. into Canada and marijuana and ecstasy from Canada to the U.S. between 2006 and 2011.

U.S attorney Timothy Lynch said the international conspiracy trafficked more than 3,000 kilograms of cocaine worth an estimated $120-million.

The drugs were hidden in secret compartments in the floors of tractor-trailers.

In addition to cocaine, the tractor-trailers were used to transport ecstasy and marijuana into the U.S. from Canada.

“The rigorous efforts of our law enforcement partners both here in the U.S. and Canada shut down this dangerous pipeline of drug activity that flowed from California to Buffalo and across the border,” said acting U.S. attorney James Kennedy.

“Those efforts kept literally thousands of kilograms of cocaine and more than half a million ecstasy pills off the streets in both our community and elsewhere.”

U.S. law enforcement officers recovered 230 kilograms of cocaine through the course of the investigation.

Of that amount, 123 kilograms of cocaine, which represented the largest seizure arising from a single investigation in the district’s history, were obtained through two separate seizures at the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge and in Geneva, NY.

Officers also seized approximately 690,000 ecstasy pills during the investigation with an estimated street value of $12-million.