Kuldip “Kelly” Mahal Coached For Surrey United Soccer Club In The Surrey Punjabi Summer League!
Kuldip “Kelly” Singh Mahal, a soccer coach with the Surrey United Soccer Club from Surrey, was arrested for allegedly traveling to Washington state to have sex with a child, according to U.S. Customs and Immigration officials. The 47-year-old, a facilities manager for a Vancouver tech firm, is charged with attempted enticement of a minor, which carries a minimum sentence of ten years and as much as life.
By R. Paul Dhillon
With News Files
SURREY – An Indo-Canadian soccer coach from Surrey was arrested for allegedly traveling to Washington state to have sex with a 12-year old girl, according to U.S. Customs and Immigration officials.
Kuldip “Kelly” Singh Mahal, 47, travelled from B.C. into Washington at the Blaine border crossing Washington after responding to an ad on Craigslist for a young girl who turned out to be US federal agents tracking pedophiles and sexual deviants.
He then went towards a Burlington park about 80 kilometres south of the border where he had agreed to meet a person he believed was a 12-year-old girl, say authorities.
An undercover special agent had been posing as the girl and Mahal was arrested at the park.
“In three weeks’ time, the defendant went from responding to an online posting to traveling from Canada to Washington State to meet a minor for illicit sex,” said Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Seattle Brad Bench in a release. “Fortunately, he was actually communicating with an undercover HSI special agent.“
The ad was posted in the “casual encounters” section of the Vancouver, B.C. Craigslist page on Jan. 15, saying “I’m a bit young and want to learn some things.”
“The defendant responded and was interested in engaging in elicit sexual conduct with agent posing as a minor,” said Agent Peter Ostrovsky with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Mahal is alleged to have sent a photo of his upper body and arms, expressing a sexual interest in the “12-year-old girl,” reported CTV News.
