Vancouver delivery driver found guilty for cigarette smuggling role

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A man has been found guilty of possessing and delivering millions of contraband cigarettes from a warehouse in Richmond to a garage at the back of an East Vancouver home.

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According to a provincial court of B.C. ruling, Yung Fung was part of a cigarette smuggling operation that was uncovered in 2018 and early 2019 after B.C. Ministry of Finance investigators received a tip from Ontario police that millions of unstamped cigarettes were being brought into B.C.

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Both the federal and B.C. government require tobacco makers to pay them tax in exchange for a stamp that is placed on each cigarette carton and is required by law in order for that tobacco to be sold to smokers.

Unstamped, or contraband, cigarettes are sold in the underground market because they are cheaper as a result of these taxes not being applied.

Court heard that between Aug. 20, 2018 and Jan. 23, 2019 investigators determined that shipments of contraband tobacco were being delivered to a shipping company in Richmond and then transported to a garage on the 2700-block of Ward Street in East Vancouver’s Renfrew-Collingwood neighbourhood, from where it was sold.

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In total, 33 deliveries were made comprising 80 skids, with each skid containing 50 half-cases that each held 6,000 cigarettes — comprising 24 million cigarettes in total.

During this time, ministry investigators staked out the operation, at one point putting a tracking device on a vehicle that was being driven by Fung from one destination to the other.

When the ring was busted, Fung was charged with possessing, transporting or delivering unstamped tobacco products between October 2018 and January 2019 under both the Criminal Code of Canada and the federal Excise Act.

The Crown alleged that Fung was a lower-tier participant in the operation but that he knowingly took possession of contraband cigarettes and facilitated their storage and illegal distribution in and around Vancouver.

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In court, through an interpreter, Fung said that he had no idea he was transporting contraband cigarettes, instead believing that he was delivering kitchen utensils or restaurant supplies.

In her ruling, provincial court of B.C. Judge Harban Dhillon said she did not believe Fung.

“I have very little confidence that Mr. Fung is telling the court the truth about his knowledge of what he was tasked with delivering prior to, and specifically on, Jan. 23, 2019,” Dhillon wrote.

“Mr. Fung said he believed he was delivering restaurant supplies. Yet his deliveries were never to a specified restaurant or business address. The deliveries were person-to-person handovers in parking lots. It would be speculation to say there might have been a restaurant nearby the parking lot when it would be far easier to deliver right to such nearby premises.

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“Mr. Fung’s overall evidence was replete with half turns and reversals from his prior evidence, and interspersed with evasion and argument.

“I find on a totality of the evidence, direct and circumstantial, that the prosecution has proven beyond a reasonable doubt Mr. Fung was in knowing possession of unstamped tobacco products on Jan. 23, 2019. I find Mr. Fung guilty of Count 1 and Count 2 of the Indictment.”

Dhillon’s ruling did not mention whether other persons at a higher level in the smuggling operation were arrested or charged. Fung, who was born in 1968, will be sentenced at a later date.

The amount of federal duty that should have been paid on the cigarettes was $420,042 and a provincial tax of $968,595 for a total of $1.389 million.

dcarrigg@postmedia.com

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