Longshoreman faces U.S. drug-smuggling charges
VANCOUVER — When longshoreman Alvin Randhawa’s brother Alexie was arrested in California for possession of 107 kilograms of cocaine in 2008, Alvin wrote a glowing reference letter to the U.S. judge.
“My brother and I have been very close since we were very young,” Alvin Randhawa said of his older brother and fellow longshoreman. “He has always been there for me and to see him make such a lifealtering mistake is absolutely devastating for me.”
Now Alvin Randhawa is behind bars, charged in New York state with six counts of smuggling and distributing both cocaine and marijuana.
He appeared in B.C. Supreme Court Tuesday. Department of Justice lawyer John Gibb-Carsley, representing the U.S. government, told Justice Brenda Brown that Randhawa had “consented to committal.”
Brown then asked Randhawa: “I am correct in my understanding that you are consenting to committal to be extradited to the United States, sir?”
“Yes,” Randhawa, 36, replied, before being taken into custody as his family sat in the public gallery.
Federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould will make the final decision on whether Randhawa will be shipped south for trial.
Randhawa was indicted by a New York grand jury and then arrested along with B.C. co-accused Patrick Bacon on May 7, 2014.
The U.S. indictment alleges Randhawa, Bacon and two Ontario co-accused were involved in smuggling marijuana across the border and into New York between 2007 and late 2010, as well as exporting cocaine from the U.S. into Canada from 2007 until May 11, 2011.
Throughout that period, Randhawa continued to work on the Vancouver waterfront as a member of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 500.
After he was released on bail in May 2014, he returned to his longtime ILWU job.
His brother Alexie Randhawa, now 37, served four years in a U.S. jail before returning to Canada and his job as a Vancouver longshoreman in November 2012.
While in a U.S. jail, Alexie Randhawa took on the Canadian government for refusing to allow him to return to Canada to serve his sentence.
He won in 2011 when the Federal Court of Canada chastised Vic Toews, then the public safety minister, for denying the prisoner transfer.
The government was ordered to pay Alexie Randhawa’s legal fees.
U.S. court documents noted the drug conspiracy in which Alexie Randhawa became entangled saw him associated with another B.C. longshoreman convicted of smuggling marijuana into Oregon — Jason Cavezza.
An Oregon prosecutor said Cavezza and his coaccused ran “one of the largest, most sophisticated, and most financially significant drug-smuggling operations ever uncovered in Oregon law-enforcement history.”
Cavezza returned to B.C. this year after serving seven years in jail for his role in the drug ring.
He maintained his membership in ILWU Local 514, which represents dock foremen, throughout his incarceration. Now he’s fighting to get his old job back.