The sa国际传媒 government wants a Vancouver house where fentanyl and a firearm were found in 2020 to be forfeited for suspected links to criminal activity.
In a civil forfeiture lawsuit filed this week, the government also wants a commercial building on Kingsway handed over, alleging it was being used as an underground gambling den until June 2022.
The statement of claim names as plaintiffs Thi Thanh Le, the owner of the house in the 6300-block of Tyne Street, along with her husband, Henry Ly, and a numbered company of which Le is the sole director. The numbered company owns the building at 2520 Kingsway where Vancouver Police found gambling equipment and stolen property last year.
Also named in the lawsuit are Trong Huy Huynh and Quen Van Quach, who the director of civil forfeiture alleges were associates of Le and Ly involved in the drug trade and illegal gaming.
The lawsuit mentions two overlapping investigations by Vancouver Police – the first in early 2020 and the second last year.
The director alleges that before April 29, 2020, the defendants used the Tyne Street house, a condo on Sawmill Crescent in southeast Vancouver, a storage locker on Kinross and a Richmond warehouse on Twigg Place to produce and traffic controlled substances, distribute and sell cannabis and launder the proceeds of crime.
On that date, Vancouver Police searched at all four locations and found about 20 kilograms of fentanyl, one kilogram of cocaine, six of methamphetamine and over 300 kilograms of cannabis and cannabis shatter, as well as cutting agents.
Some of the fentanyl, meth and cannabis was found at the Tyne Street house, as was “a fanny pack containing a restricted firearm and two loaded magazines” and a code for the storage facility, the statement of claim said.
In the storage locker, police found more than eight kilograms of various drugs, some packaged for sale, as well as weigh scales and four loaded handguns with magazines and ammunition.
In the Sawmill condo were larger amounts fentanyl, as well as cocaine, methamphetamine, ketamine and cutting agents. Police also seized two more loaded handguns with magazines and ammunition, and one 50-round drum firearm magazine.
The Richmond warehouse was the site of “a clandestine drug production facility,” the director alleged, containing “a chemical typically used in the production of fentanyl.”
The VPD held a news conference in May 2020 to show the media what had been seized. But no one appears to have been criminally charged in the case.
Until June of last year, “the defendants used the Kingsway property as a gaming or betting house,” the director alleged in the lawsuit.
The property, along with two others on East 8th Avenue and East 33rd Avenue and two vehicles owned by Huynh were used to facilitate drug trafficking, trafficking stolen property and laundering the proceeds of crime, the statement of claim also said.
Between April and June of 2022, “Huynh purchased several items purported to be stolen from an undercover officer” then took the items to the Kingsway property or the house on East 8th, the lawsuit said. Once, Huynh paid the officer with cash “and 0.7 grams of fentanyl for the stolen property,” the lawsuit said.
Police searched the Kingsway property and the two Vancouver residences last year and found stolen property, score sheets, gaming equipment.
The civil forfeiture director said the two buildings, with a total assessed value of $8.1 million, as well as the vehicles and miscellaneous items should be forfeited as the proceeds of criminal activity, including, production and possession for the purpose of trafficking, as well as trafficking controlled substances, illegal cannabis sales, unauthorized possession of a firearm, keeping a gaming or betting house and trafficking in property obtained by crime.
No statements of defence have been filed.
