Extradition overturned in marijuana conspiracy case

The B.C. Court of Appeal has overturned an extradition order for three men accused in a conspiracy to smuggle hundreds of kilograms of marijuana across the U.S. border in hollowed-out logs.

In April 2015, Shane Donald Fraser, Daniel James Joinson and Todd Ian Ferguson were ordered committed for extradition in connection with the conspiracy, in which at least nine shipments of logs were moved from the Okanagan to California in 2006.

Law enforcement officials in Ontario, Calif. seized 10 logs, each around 7.5 metres long, that were hollowed out. A total of 333.5 kilograms of high-grade pot was seized.

The case against the accused depended primarily on wiretap evidence. At the accused’s extradition hearing, they applied for disclosure relating to the judicial authorization to intercept their private electronic communications in Canada.

They claimed that the information was needed to determine whether their rights had been violated by the RCMP.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Jeanne Watchuk, the extradition judge, concluded that the information before the court was sufficient to determine the Charter issues. She dismissed the disclosure application and ordered the men committed for extradition.

On appeal, the accused claimed that the judge made a number of errors in her decision to deny the disclosure application.

A three-judge panel of the B.C. Court of Appeal agreed that mistakes made by the extradition judge were serious enough to warrant the appeal being upheld and a new extradition hearing was ordered.

Four other men who were ordered extradited in connection with the same case but who had evidence against them gathered largely by surveillance have had their appeals dismissed.