COURTS: Three, including high-profile Surrey gangster, plead not guilty in ecstasy drug case

Sukhveer ‘Sukh’ Singh Dhak leaves B.C. Supreme Court on Oct. 22.

High-profile Surrey gangster Sukhveer Singh Dhak was the directing mind behind a drug operation that resulted in police seizing more than 18,000 ecstasy pills, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Police charged Dhak and his two co-accused, Baljit Singh Pabla and Neville James Rankin, after the pills were discovered in a basement suite on Rupert Street in Vancouver in March 2008.

Also seized were a pill press and paraphernalia to press ecstasy powder into tablets, as well as a quantity of ecstasy powder.

“The Crown’s theory of the case is that Mr. Dhak was directing this operation, giving instructions to Mr. Pabla and Mr. Rankin as well as supplying ingredients,” Crown counsel Sharon Steele said in her brief opening statement.

“I expect the evidence against Mr. Dhak will include intercepted calls and surveillance which places him at 1956 Rupert Street.”

Steele told B.C. Supreme Court Madam Justice Gail Dickson that Dhak’s Surrey residence on 108th Street and his person were also searched, with police locating items associated with drug trafficking.

Also found were some ecstasy pills similar to those seized at Rupert Street, she said.

The evidence will show that Pabla was a worker, pressing the ecstasy pills, and that Rankin was involved in producing the drugs as well as maintaining and repairing the pill press, Steele said.

During intercepted phone calls, Dhak and Pabla used their own names, but evidence linking Rankin to the phone calls is circumstantial, the prosecutor noted.

In addition to the surveillance and searches evidence, there are expected to be two expert witnesses. A total of 25 Crown witnesses will give evidence during the five-week trial.

Dhak, Pabla and Rankin on Wednesday each entered not-guilty pleas to three counts — conspiracy to produce ecstasy, production of ecstasy and possession of ecstasy for the purpose of trafficking.

The three men were arrested following a police dragnet dubbed Project Gateway.

In December 2008, Delta police displayed tables full of $2.4 million worth of cocaine, heroin, marijuana, ecstasy and automatic weapons.

A total of 26 drug, weapons and conspiracy charges were laid against nine people.

In September 2011, following a number of gang-related shootings, the gang task force issued an extraordinary public warning that anyone around Dhak or his associates in the Dhure group and the UN gang could be at risk.

Dhak is the younger brother of Dhak kingpin Gurmit Singh Dhak, who was gunned down at Metrotown shopping centre in October 2010.

Tags: Sukhveer Singh Dhak

ed says:

October 24, 2012 at 3:02 pm

wheere is the canadian sikh coalition on this

this guy is a disgrace to the hardworking Sikhs