Crown suggests 15 years for trafficker

Hells Angel associate a ‘significant’ player in large cocaine operation

A Hells Angels associate convicted last fall in a massive cocaine conspiracy should spend 15 years in prison, federal prosecutor Chris Greenwood said Tuesday.

Greenwood told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Carol Ross that James Howard played a “very significant” role in the plot to smuggle half a tonne of cocaine into Canada in 2012.

What Howard didn’t know was that the purported South American coke brokers negotiating with his gang were undercover cops who orchestrated a reverse sting over months.

The police received a $4-million down payment, then delivered a kilo of real cocaine and 199 kilos of fake product to a Burnaby warehouse on Aug. 25, 2012 as Howard and his co-accused were arrested.

On Sept. 30, 2016, Ross convicted Howard of conspiracy to traffic cocaine and possession for the purpose of trafficking.

Also convicted were full-patch Hells Angels David Giles and Bryan Oldham and associate Shawn Womacks, who will be sentenced in March.

Greenwood said Howard was part of “the upper echelon of the drug trade” and the conspiracy to buy 500 kilos of cocaine was “in- tended to be the first in a series of transactions.”

“I don’t suggest that Mr. Howard is the mastermind of this sophisticated organization, but I do say that his profession is in the business of trafficking drugs,” he added.

“He was a partner in the trafficking scheme. He was responsible for transportation, for supervising employees he described as his crew, and he had an ownership interest in the product and the profits that were going to be achieved.”

Howard got involved in the plot in May 2012, months after Giles and Kevin Van Kalkeren, who earlier pleaded guilty, unwittingly met the undercover police who would be their undoing.

Greenwood said a stiff sentence would provide appropriate deter- rence and denunciation given the scale of the cocaine operation.

“The damaged one to the community by large-scale trafficking in my submission is profound,” he told the judge. “The proliferation of cocaine and other hard drugs affects communities across Canada, and I would submit with respect that your ladyship doesn’t have to go far from this courtroom to see some of those problems.”

Greenwood said Howard had been involved in the drug trade for six years before the 2012 sting, but had no convictions.

Howard travelled to Los Angeles after meeting the cops “to set up a structure to transport cocaine” when the plan was to pick up the drugs there, Greenwood said.

He attended meetings with his co-conspirators, communicated in encrypted messages, assembled the team to process the cocaine, paid for their radios and provided BlackBerrys for his workers, Greenwood said. Howard was in charge of distributing the cocaine and planned to sell it in Alberta.

He was so worried about security that he made sure not all his crew members had details of the deal “so they didn’t have to worry about anyone ratting,” Greenwood said.

Greenwood said Howard clearly could have been successful if he’d chosen a legitimate path in life.

“You are dealing with a mature individual,” Greenwood said, “who possessed life skills and who was aware of the illegality and the risks involved, but was committed to a course of illegal action over many weeks, and that is the context in which the moral responsibility for this offence arises.”

Ross adjourned Howard’s sentencing hearing to March 1.

I don’t suggest that Mr. Howard is the mastermind of this sophisticated organization.