11 years for leader of drug trafficking network

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This article was published 27/12/2023 (652 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man whose cross-country drug and cigarette trafficking ring ensnared a Manitoba government official has been sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Hue Ha, 37, pleaded guilty last month to one count each of conspiracy to traffic drugs and weapons trafficking.

Ha was the target of a seven-month-long RCMP investigation dubbed “Project Dawgpound” that began in May 2022, after police intelligence analysts identified a Winnipeg trafficker dealing in large quantities of cocaine and other drugs and commodities.

“This isn’t the type of organization where it is structured with very hierarchical roles,” Crown prosecutor Janna Hyman told provincial court Judge Sandy Chapman at a sentencing hearing last month.

“This is Mr. Ha doing all the things himself, in a lot of ways,” including sourcing kilogram-level quantities of cocaine from Ontario and transporting the drugs to Manitoba himself in a vehicle that had been modified to conceal contraband.

Ha also worked directly with street dealers, Hyman said, in many cases paying addicts with a cut of the drugs they were selling.

Ha, who has no prior criminal record, was arrested driving back to Manitoba with kilos of cocaine in his vehicle Dec. 18, 2022. He was released on conditions and arrested again Jan. 12, when Mounties executed search warrants as part of a “co-ordinated takedown” of the suspected network.

Investigators seized large amounts of street drugs (including cocaine, methamphetamine and Percocet pills) worth more than $2 million and 19 firearms, as well as contraband cigarettes that would have yielded $1.47 million in tax revenue, Mounties said in March, when announcing Ha’s arrest.

Ha’s network reached into the Interlake region, including the communities of Ashern and Fairford, and to points between Ontario and British Columbia.

“Ha was selling anything illegal that was going to make him money,” Hyman told court last month.

Twenty other people from Manitoba and Ontario were arrested, as of March, as part of the Dawgpound investigation, including a member of Manitoba Finance’s special investigations unit: Donavon Sired.

Sired, 51, is accused of supplying Ha’s network with information that would help it evade police on the highway looking for contraband cigarettes.

Sired is charged with bribery of officers, breach of trust by a public officer and conspiracy to evade payment. Sired has not entered any pleas to the charges. His next court date is Jan. 8.

Ha received credit for time served, reducing his remaining sentence to just over 9 1/2 years.

“This is a significant sentence for someone with no criminal record,” said Ha’s lawyer, Kristen Jones. “It’s a pretty unusual situation to find a 37-year-old man with no criminal record entering into the justice system at this level.”

Ha told court he “accept(ed) responsibility for doing wrong” and wanted to “move on with (his) life.”

Chapman urged Ha to find a “more legal” profession when he is released from prison.

“Some people might say (a prison sentence) is just the cost of doing business,” the judge said. “But when the cost of business is 11 years of your life, it’s a very significant cost.”

Another Manitoba resident charged in the investigation, Amanda Boulanger, was working at the time of her arrest as a Corps of Commissionaires guard at the Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health in Winnipeg.

Boulanger, 28, was sentenced to two years house arrest and two years probation last month, after admitting to stashing a cocaine-filled backpack in her home at Ha’s behest, in exchange for $200.

Court heard at her sentencing police had affixed cameras and audio equipment to Ha’s Toyota 4Runner that captured him arranging the drug drop off.

Boulanger, who had no prior criminal record, was a single mother with a troubled background struggling to support two young children when she was arrested, defence lawyer Jason Poettcker told court at her sentencing.

Ha cultivated a friendship with Boulanger and exploited her, knowing she needed money, Poettcker said.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca