B.C. drug trafficker sentenced to prison for dial-a-dope operation

The City of Vernon, B.C., is seen in this image from its website. (vernon.ca)

A 26-year-old man from India who came to Canada on a student visa has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison after pleading guilty to trafficking cocaine and fentanyl in the British Columbia Interior.

Mandeep Pandher was arrested in May 2022 after he was caught leaving a suspected drug stash house near the UBC Okanagan campus in Kelowna, carrying more than 30 grams of cocaine and 10 grams of fentanyl, according the B.C. Supreme Court sentencing decision.

Pandher and two others were under police surveillance at the time, suspected of running a dial-a-dope operation between Kelowna and the nearby community of Vernon.

After Pandher was arrested, a police search of the UBC Okanagan-area apartment turned up a cache of drugs and led to the arrest of his alleged accomplices – Prince Dhanoa, who was previously sentenced to three years in prison, and Maninder Kaur, who was ordered deported.

According to the court, Pandher finished high school in India before coming to Canada to take university classes in Ontario.

“At some point, he apparently ran out of money and stopped attending university, contrary to the terms of his student visa,” Justice Gary Weatherill said in his April 22 decision. “As a result of breaching the terms of his student visa, he is now subject to a deportation order.”

The order to deport Pandher was issued in April 2024 but was stayed pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings.

The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada ruled Pandher inadmissible to Canada in 2023 after he failed to inform authorities that he had been arrested and charged with the drug offences when he applied for a work permit the previous year.

‘A pure profiteer’

Crown prosecutors had sought a three-year prison sentence in the case, arguing that Pandher’s access to the stash house indicated he had reached a high level in the drug-trafficking hierarchy.

Pandher’s defence lawyer countered that a two-year conditional sentence was appropriate given that his client had no prior criminal convictions and only turned to drug dealing because he had run out of money.

The judge emphasized that Pandher was not a drug-user himself but rather “a pure profiteer” and “a parasite” who enriched himself on the addictions of others.

“In addition to providing your customers with the wherewithal to seriously harm or kill themselves, Mr. Pandher, you exposed those who you sold the drugs to and those around you to the risk of harm from incidental contact with highly toxic substances and, dare I say, the risk of violence,” Weatherill said.

“This court has many times made it clear that trafficking in these types of drugs is not going to be tolerated,” he continued. “Society looks upon our justice system to do its part in persuading people like you, Mr. Pandher, who are invited to join the ranks of traffickers, to think twice.”

In addition to the 30-month prison sentence, the judge ordered Pandher to submit a DNA sample to the national criminal database and forfeit any funds and property seized to the Crown. He is also prohibited from possessing firearms for 10 years.

“You may consider that my sentence of 30 months is too harsh,” the judge said, addressing Pandher directly.

“I can tell you it is not. You must understand that what you were doing was irresponsible and potentially lethal to those you were selling these drugs to. Many of these people, I suspect, were drug addicts and were on the lower fringes of society and unable to contribute anything to society because of their drug addiction and drug use.”