Smuggler’s Inn trio plead guilty
Three Metro Vancouver residents have pleaded guilty in Seattle to conspiracy to distribute cocaine after getting busted last December near Blaine’s Smuggler’s Inn.
All three were nabbed Dec. 15, 2011 after U. S. Homeland Security agents received a tip about possible smuggling activity near the inn, located just metres from the Canada- U. S. border.
Jasmin Klair, 21, was caught heading to the quaint bed and breakfast with almost 11 kilos of cocaine packed into a box. Two of her accomplices, Narinder Kaler and Gurjit Singh Sandhu, both 25, were intercepted by agents as they arrived at the inn later that day to collect the coke. They fled, but were grabbed before they could re- enter Canada.
Klair struck a plea bargain with the U. S. Attorney, the details of which are sealed. The college student is to be sentenced on May 29; Sandhu on Aug. 20, and Kaler on Aug. 27. Sentences could range from 10 years to life, though many Canadians have received less than the minimum after pleading guilty.
Kaler’s plea agreement states that defendant Narinder Singh Kaler talked to an unindicted suspect identified only as G. K. in court documents “about assisting in a plan to transport controlled substances in Western Washington.”
Meanwhile, Sandhu had asked Klair to help smuggle drugs, court documents said. Klair travelled south on Dec. 15 to Burlington, where she picked up the cocaine in the parking lot of a Jack in the Box. She was “driven to a hotel located about 30 feet south of the U. S./ Canadian border at around 6: 15 p. m.,” the plea agreement states.
She cooperated with agents after she was searched and continued to talk to Sandhu back in Canada.
“At about 11: 30 p. m. that same day, Sandhu told Klair to put the box outside the door of her motel room, to turn out the lights, and they would all run across the border to a waiting car,” the agreement says.
Agents watched as a Volkswagen Jetta driven by someone else dropped off Kaler and Sandhu about 11: 45 p. m. They were arrested after entering the U. S.