Suspect in illegal bank case guilty of trafficking

A B.C. Supreme Court judge convicted a Richmond man Tuesday of providing kilos of ecstasy that were later sold to an undercover officer over several months in 2015.

Justice Terence Schultes said that federal prosecutors had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Stephen Hai Chen trafficked MDMA, or ecstasy, on six occasions between February and August of that year.

But he also ruled that on three other occasions in June 2015, the circumstantial evidence did not prove definitively that Chen was involved in delivering ecstasy to a man named Tarsem Jawanda, who earlier pleaded guilty in the drug case and was sentenced to six years in prison.

Schultes accepted that it was Chen who repeatedly spoke to Jawanda on a cellphone that was being wiretapped by police.

Chen’s lawyer Emil Doricic had argued in closing submissions that anyone who worked for Chen’s concrete company back in 2015 could have been using the phone.

But Schultes said the police surveillance showed Chen answering a call at the exact moment an officer dialed the number.

The judge also agreed with Crown Maggie Loda that the calls were unusually cryptic and suspicious.

“The focus is overwhelmingly on meeting locations, times and logistics to obtain and pay for ‘it,’ which is quite conspicuously never defined,” Schultes said. “There is really nothing in the nature of the conversations intercepted that is reasonably referable to any such business.”

While the case against Chen was entirely circumstantial, Schultes said the phone calls, police surveillance on both Chen and Jawanda, as well as Jawanda’s comments to the undercover officer all prove Chen’s role in the drug operation.

Schultes accepted the Crown’s contention that Chen’s purpose for meeting Jawanda on Feb. 14, 2015 behind an east Vancouver restaurant was to give him a kilogram of ecstasy.

In a call before the meeting, Chen said: “I have to go get it now,” and Jawanda responded that he needed “it” today.

An hour after the meeting, Jawanda sold the MDMA to the officer for $9,000.

On July 6, Chen called Jawanda and they arranged for a drug delivery in south Vancouver. The next day, the officer bought two kilos of MDMA for $17,000.

On Aug. 13, Chen was seen moving around a black suitcase that Schultes accepted contained more ecstasy that was given to the police officer the next day. Jawanda referred to his supplier as his “main guy … we’ve been doing business for like 20 years.”

Jawanda later told Chen he would bring him the “paperwork,” which Schultes said was clearly a code word for money.

Chen was also guilty of supplying the drugs during similar scenarios later in August 2015, Schultes said.

“I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Chen’s participation as supplier is also the only reasonable inference emerging from the evidence,” Schultes said.

“Therefore, I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the incidents on Feb. 14, July 7 and Aug. 14, 18, 21 and 26th in the evidence are consistent only with Mr. Chen’s guilt and inconsistent with any other reasonable explanation.”

Schultes said a date for sentencing would be set today.

Chen is also battling the B.C. director of civil forfeiture in court.

The director alleges that Chen deposited $5.31 million in the illegal underground bank Silver International and withdrew $2.27 million between June 1 and Oct. 1, 2015, the same period police were watching him in the drug case dubbed E-Naos.

The government wants two Vancouver properties forfeited, as well as more than $67,000 in cash.