The B.C. man arrested last week in the drug superlab raid that yielded almost half a tonne of methamphetamine, fentanyl and cocaine pleaded guilty eight years ago to selling drugs out of his mother’s car.
Gaganpreet Singh Randhawa was 23 years old in 2016 when he was arrested in Burnaby for dial-a-dope trafficking.
During sentencing in 2017, he told the judge he tried to leave the drug business but was threatened with death by his unnamed bosses.
“When I was about a month into selling drugs, I felt really bad about what I was doing to other people,” he said in court audio recordings obtained by CBC. “I said I don’t want to do it, and they kept telling me pretty much that if you don’t, we’ll kill you.”
Randhawa told the judge he even found someone to take over his dial-a-dope job, but they only lasted one day.
“I tried to replace myself … so I thought I was in the clear. But he ended up running off, so I got stuck back there again. I didn’t really have a choice.”
Fast forward to 2024, where Randhawa, now 32, is facing seven charges related to the raid in Falkland, B.C., which RCMP describe as the largest and most sophisticated drug superlab in Canada.
The lab is connected to a transnational crime group, according to police, that was mass-producing fentanyl and methamphetamine for distribution in Canada and internationally. They said the drugs and chemicals seized equal more than 95 million doses and are worth close to half a billion dollars.
Randhawa has been described as a “main suspect.” He is facing seven charges for alleged offences that took place in Surrey and Richmond, including possession for trafficking and export, illegal firearms and unlawful possession of explosives.
In 2017, Randhawa’s lawyer in the Burnaby dial-a-dope case told the court that his client’s arrest ended up being his ticket out of the drug trade because he was “heated out,” meaning Randhawa became too much of a risk because he was known to police.
RCMP say the illegal drug production facility in Falkland was the largest and most sophisticated in Canada. (RCMP)
In order to pay off his debt from the drugs seized by Burnaby police, Randhawa had his mother sign over her car, which he then handed over to his bosses.
His lawyer said Randhawa had studied to be a tax preparer but found the field wasn’t for him.
In 2017, he received a sentence of 90 days in jail to be served intermittently on weekends and was banned from having firearms for 10 years.