Cops smoke out meth, coke ring, court hears

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This article was published 07/05/2025 (323 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg couple vowed to “turn over a new leaf” after being arrested for allegedly selling contraband cigarettes and marijuana from a string of inner-city convenience stores they operated, only to be taken back into custody accused of heading a high-level cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking network, a court has heard.

Forty-two-year-old Harpreet Mangat was denied bail Monday.

“She is making the same promises to this court that she made before and then breached every day that she was being watched by police,” said provincial court Judge Kusham Sharma. “I have no confidence that any conditions the court places on her will prevent her from breaching and becoming reinvolved.”

Mangat, her husband Ravindeer Singh Aulakh, and four co-accused were arrested last month following an interprovincial drug investigation that netted the seizure of 10 kilograms of meth and two kilograms of cocaine.

Mangat and Aulakh, 46, owned 16 properties, including several convenience stores, when in 2023 they became the target of Canada Revenue Agency investigators. They were suspicious the couple’s declared income did not match their financial means, evidenced by Mangat’s purchase of several properties years earlier for $1 million in cash.

The couple was arrested in January 2024 after search warrants executed at their home and several business properties resulted in the seizure of large amounts of contraband cigarettes, marijuana and cash.

The following month, “the couple convinced the Crown that they were going to turn over a new leaf. They were going to divest themselves of their properties in Winnipeg and move to Surrey, B.C.,” Sharma said.

Crown prosecutors agreed to vary the couple’s bail on condition they live in British Columbia and not attend any of the Winnipeg properties where illegal cigarettes were sold.

Police continued to investigate Aulakh and a now-charged co-accused, Landon Murray, and obtained approval for wiretap surveillance they expected would uncover additional evidence of illegal cigarette sales.

“But what they found instead was a number of conversations that indicated Mr. Murray was running what appears to be a high-level drug operation with Mr. Aulakh as the ‘boss,’” Sharma said.

In November and December, police intercepted calls between Murray, his girlfriend and other “accused associates” in which they discussed plans to meet “the boss’s wife” at one of the convenience stores to hand over drug trafficking proceeds.

In January, Aulakh was captured on video in British Columbia sending a package through FedEx to a woman in Winnipeg. FedEx staff, suspicious of Aulakh’s behaviour, opened the package and found 10 kilograms of methamphetamine and two kilograms of cocaine. Police secured search warrants for the Winnipeg convenience stores and found more illegal cigarettes, marijuana, drug paraphernalia and large amounts of cash, Sharma said.

Wiretap recordings revealed Mangat and Aulakh “had continued their business throughout the time they were supposed to be leaving the life behind and starting over in British Columbia,” Sharma said.

Police learned Mangat had returned to Winnipeg in February and was living in an apartment until her arrest last month. Prosecutors allege Mangat was captured on surveillance video visiting the same convenience stores she was under court order not to attend. Three alleged drug-ring associates identified Mangat as the person they dealt with at the stores.

Mangat, through her lawyer Richard Wolson, denied the new allegations against her, claiming she and Aulakh had separated and he was with another woman when discussions of “the boss’s wife” were captured on wiretap recordings. Mangat said she was in Winnipeg to oversee renovations at a hotel she had purchased.

Sharma said she believed there was a “substantial risk” Mangat would reoffend if released on bail.

Mangat “has demonstrated she is willing to engage in very risky behaviour knowing that she and her husband got a significant chance when they were released from custody the last time.”

Mangat has been the target of illegal cigarette sale investigations dating back to 2019.

In 2021, she was fined $7,500 and ordered to pay a tax penalty of $28,000 after Manitoba Finance investigators found 32,000 untaxed cigarettes in the car she had been driving.

Aulakh has not applied for bail.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca