Organized-crime probe ‘a fiasco from beginning to end’

A police allegation that a Vietnamese man living in Canada is a “hit man” for a large drug gang was not deemed credible enough to prompt his deportation — adding to 17 years of humiliation for officers over a fiasco of an organized crime probe.

Anh Le Tran, now 36, was arrested in 1999 in Edmonton with dozens of others in a high-profile crackdown targeting the Trang gang. It was to be a showcase of the federal government’s new organized crime laws, but collapsed in shambles despite a 14-month investigation, the construction of a $2.1-million secure courtroom to house the trial and years of prosecution.

The latest twist is another in a staggering concatenation of woe for what was code-named Project Kachou.

The case seemed fated from the morning it began: Two men, including a 15-year-old, died after falling from a balcony during a police raid on their apartment, likely pushed off by the force of police concussive grenades when officers entered.

Charges against most of the accused, including Tran, were eventually dropped for unreasonable delay and mistakes a judge called “shocking ” — including 38 boxes of undisclosed evidence found midtrial in a police officer’s basement and RCMP storage.

In 2002, Tran and 20 of the other accused sued Ottawa over their treatment in detention. A judge accepted they suffered cruel and unusual punishment in 2010; a civil suit seeking damages is still before the courts 17 years later.

Police interest in the men did not end.

Tran became a permanent resident of Canada in 1994 after emigrating from Vietnam, but he never became a Canadian citizen. He moved to Edmonton in 1998 and was arrested in Project Kachou a year later.

He was charged with belonging to a criminal organization and cocaine trafficking. He remained in custody, pending trial, until 2001.

A year later, he testified at a hearing into conditions at the Edmonton Remand Centre. Tran said guards smashed his head against a wall many times and punched him in the ribs while they made racist comments.

“I was told I would have been shot by now if I was in Vietnam and that all orientals are troublemakers and cocaine dealers,” he said.

The government sought to deport some of the men who were not Canadian citizens and a few were successfully removed.

By the time Canada Border Services Agency came for Tran in 2012, he was working in a marijuana grow operation, for which he was convicted of production and possession of a controlled substance.

CBSA deemed him ineligible to be in Canada on grounds of serious criminality and organized criminality.

His hearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board heard shocking allegations, including an apparent intelligence report saying he was “classified as a hit man for the Trang organization.”

Evidence on Tran came from Insp. Kevin Brezinski of Edmonton police who told the IRB that Tran was a “food boss” (a mid-level drug distributor) for the Trang Gang; police intercepted a conversation in which he discussed AK-47 and .357 firearms; Tran was “close” to higher-up members of the gang; and an intelligence report pegged him as a hit man.

“On their face these facts seem to be compelling evidence of the respondent’s membership in the Trang Gang,” wrote the IRB’s George Pemberton in a 2015 decision appealed to the Federal Court.

Closer scrutiny caused Pemberton concern, however.

The testimony came with few details, was not firsthand and could not be supported by any written or direct evidence. When pressed for supporting evidence, the IRB was told police information on the gang “had been purged or is no longer available.”

“Given the vague nature of the testimony, I give it little weight,” ruled Pemberton.

The evidence on the grow op showed the alleged organized crime group Tran worked with consisted of his wife and his wife’s cousin. The IRB did not consider this was an example of organized crime.

The government appealed the IRB’s decision to the Federal Court where, last month, Justice René LeBlanc dismissed it, accepting there was “insufficient credible and trustworthy evidence” to support the government’s claims.

Tom Engel, a lawyer for Tran in the civil suit who represented a coaccused at the failed trial, said the police testimony is concerning.

“It surprises me greatly they make these allegations. I’m concerned they would go out on a limb and offer these opinions based on thin or no evidence,“he said.

“The prosecution itself collapsed under its own weight. It is safe to say it was a fiasco from beginning to end.”

The Trang gang case was successful on one level, the IRB heard — the gang ceased to exist after the arrests.

However, some of its members carried on their drug activities and, by 2002, had coalesced into a successor organization, the Crazy Dragons, described as more violent than the Trang.

Edmonton police could not comment on the circumstances of the case before deadline.