Cocaine haul nets B.C. man U.S. sentence
Last Updated: Friday, April 2, 2010 | 8:53 PM PT
The Canadian Press
An attempt to smuggle cocaine across the Pacific Highway border crossing has landed a truck driver in U.S. prison. (CBC)A B.C. truck driver has been sentenced to three years in a U.S. prison after trying to carry 76 kilograms of cocaine into Canada.
Sukhvinder Shoker of Surrey was convicted of conspiracy to export cocaine after $2.3 million of the drug was found hidden inside false walls in his moving truck.
Shoker, 43, was in tears in U.S. District Court in Seattle on Friday as he told the judge he'd always tried to teach his kids to stay away from drugs.
The judge called Shoker's criminal activity an aberration in an otherwise law-abiding life. The judge also sentenced him to three years of supervised release after his stint in prison.
Shoker was arrested last October as he tried to enter Canada through the Pacific Highway crossing, south of Vancouver. He said the recession forced him to get involved in the criminal scheme.
U.S. attorney Adam Cornell conceded that Shoker had a limited role in the drug conspiracy but pressed for a harsher sentence because of the recent violence involving the Canadian drug trade.
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