BURST
The B.C. government wants three Lower Mainland properties forfeited, alleging the owners were part of a sophisticated operation to produce fentanyl in clandestine labs.
The civil forfeiture lawsuit filed this week lays out steps the alleged fentanyl producers took to make the deadly substance.
A fake company imported the necessary precursor chemicals, and lab equipment was purchased and moved to locations in Aldergrove, Pitt Meadows and Mission, according to the lawsuit.
Details in the lawsuit match those released by the RCMP’s federal and serious organized crime unit in April about the seizure of equipment and finished product at the labs, which “were equipped with specialized chemical processing equipment often found in academic and professional research facilities, with one of the arrested individuals claiming to be a chemist with an advance degree in organic chemistry.”
No one has yet been charged in the case, although two people — including the suspected chemist — were arrested at one of the labs in March.
The director of civil forfeiture names Langley residents Cesar Douglas Escobar Calderon, Harpaul Singh Gill and Michaela Marie Butler Christensen as defendants.
The director says Escobar Calderon’s townhouse at 8476 207A St. and Gill and Butler’s house at 3745 208 St. should be handed over to the government, as should a warehouse owned by Gill’s company at 3088 275A St. in Aldergrove.
The total assessed value of the properties is more than $4.7 million.
The lawsuit alleged that Gill “purchased substantial quantities of chemicals commonly found in clandestine laboratories,” ordering them “using the name of a fictitious company.” He then arranged for the chemicals to be delivered to his warehouse on 275A Street.
It also alleged he purchased “professional laboratory equipment from overseas.”
The equipment was delivered to his 208 Street house, which also serves as the registered office of his company One Oak Construction Ltd.
The director alleged that from Gill’s home, he distributed the equipment to the clandestine lab in Aldergrove and two others — one on McKechnie Road in Pitt Meadows and the other on Seux Road in Mission.
The Aldergrove, Mission and Pitt Meadows properties “were used as clandestine locations at which to manufacture, store, or distribute fentanyl, or to store and distribute the precursors or equipment used to synthesize fentanyl,” the lawsuit alleged.
Police also seized a 2020 Dodge Ram, a 2021 Chevrolet Tahoe and a 2015 Snake River dump trailer owned by Gill and Escobar Calderon that the government also wants to keep, alleging they were used in the fentanyl operation.
When police went to the McKechnie Road property with a search warrant on March 26, they found Escobar Calderon and “a clandestine laboratory for the purposes of manufacturing or processing fentanyl and other controlled substances,” as well as 359 grams of fentanyl and “large volumes of precursors used in the synthesis of fentanyl,” the lawsuit alleges
Gill’s house was also searched that day and “laboratory-grade glassware” seized.
Another search was done of Escobar Calderon’s townhouse where federal investigators found a safe with MDMA inside, as well as “illicit drug synthesis manuals” and “handwritten notes on illicit drug synthesis,” the director alleged.
At the Seux Road property in Mission, the RCMP located the third clandestine lab “for the purposes of manufacturing or processing fentanyl and other controlled substances,” the claim said. Also found was “commercial-sized laboratory equipment,” 2246 grams of MDMA, 5,000 grams of fentanyl, and “large volumes of precursors.”
The Langley and Aldergrove properties should be forfeited as “proceeds and instruments of unlawful activity,” the director argued.
The crimes alleged include production and possession for the purpose of trafficking, as well as trafficking controlled substances, possession of the proceeds of crime, money laundering, and failure to declare income tax.
None of the defendants has filed a response.
The lawsuit is just the latest filed against criminal organizations allegedly involved in producing large quantities of fentanyl, which has fuelled B.C.’s toxic drug crisis.
In recent months, the director of civil forfeiture has targeted the owner of a Falkland property where police found Canada’s largest-ever fentanyl lab last October and the owners and a tenant at a Spallumcheen property where a drug lab was searched in February.
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Bluesky: @kimbolan.bsky.social