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To: abuelita who wrote (28887)	8/15/2000 2:05:39 PM
From: Mannie	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 35685

Hey Rose... How about that Canadian Military? Wow.. 7 arrested in alleged bid to smuggle pot into U.S. 240 pounds of potent 'B.C. Bud' seized by border agents at Blaine Tuesday, August 15, 2000 By SAM SKOLNIK SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER Seven people have been arrested by federal agents following an alleged attempt to smuggle 240 pounds of potent marijuana into the United States using Canadian military trucks. The five Canadians and two Americans were brought up on felony charges yesterday in U.S. District Court in Seattle. The alleged pot smugglers face up to 20 years in prison, authorities said. The "B.C. Bud" captured Saturday by U.S. Customs agents at Blaine has a street value of up to $1.2 million. The British Columbia-grown marijuana wholesales for as much as $5,000 a pound on the East Coast, the Customs Service said. The incident began when two Canadian men, identified as Sten Strom and Brent Rusnak, attempted to cross the border in a pair of military trucks: a tow truck and a utility vehicle. Strom, 36, showed the customs agents a card identifying himself as a sergeant in the Canadian military reserves. The men told the customs agents they were on their way to retrieve a broken-down military vehicle in Ferndale. The border agents were suspicious and searched the trucks. Authorities said they found five duffel bags in one of the trucks stuffed with a total of 240 pounds of pot, already divided into plastic bags. After their arrest, Strom and Rusnak, 32, led Customs agents and personnel from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to a Blaine shopping mall, where the load was to be received by a third Canadian, Robert Laurin, 34, authorities said. They said that after Laurin was taken into custody, a cellular phone seized by the agents began ringing. The caller, concerned about the delayed marijuana delivery, asked that the pot be taken to the underground garage of a Seattle hotel, authorities said. The agents took the duffel bags there and arrested four people -- Canadians Yoshi Yamada, 53, and Roderick Brennan, 52; and Americans Wesley Dean Antholz, 41, of Colorado and Erin Nicole Harms, 26, of California. "I think the agents did a really good job," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Bonnie McNaughton, who oversees the drug unit for the federal prosecutor's office in Seattle. "They took some significant risks" in proceeding to the Seattle meeting as stand-ins for the delivery man, McNaughton said, when they could not be sure whether the people in the hotel basement knew what he looked like. A detention hearing in the case is set for Thursday. The drug trade along the U.S.-Canada border has flourished in recent years, according to agents and prosecutors. Assistant U.S. Attorney Hugh Berry estimated that smugglers are attempting to bring in large quantities of drugs at least a half-dozen times a month. "It's hard to say, with the quantities coming in, what type of (enforcement) effect you're having," Berry said.