Randeep Singh Match, who’s serving five and a half years in prison, had hoped a BC Supreme Court judge would agree to try him separately from his co-accused, Manindervir Singh Virk. In 2009, they were caught carrying duffel bags stuffed with $1.2 million worth of cocaine bricks.
ABBOTSFORD – An Indo-Canadian man from Abbotsford who smuggled drugs across the U.S. border almost four years ago has lost his bid for a new trial.
Randeep Singh Match, who’s serving five and a half years in prison, had hoped a BC Supreme Court judge would agree to try him separately from his co-accused, Manindervir Singh Virk, reported CKNW.
In 2009, they were caught carrying duffel bags stuffed with $1.2 million worth of cocaine bricks.
Match claims he’s innocent, but didn’t testify at his trial because his former lawyer indicated he would be acquitted.
The judge dismissed his request when he was sentenced in August, but didn’t explain why until this week.
She says Natch was well aware he could have testified, but still chose to follow his lawyer’s advice.
Match and Virk were arrested September 14, 2009 after U.S. border patrol motion-detection cameras spotted three men crossing into the United States and quickly backtracking into Canada in a heavily wooded and unmanned section near the Sumas border crossing, reported Abbotsford news.
Match and Virk were nabbed around 10:45 p.m. in a co-ordinated bust involving Abbotsford Police, K-9 units, U.S. Border Patrol Services, and the RCMP.
APD officers discovered four duffel bags stuffed with tightly packed bricks of cocaine and tracked Match and Virk to a location a short distance away.
The RCMP helicopter was able to follow the pair using an infrared camera system, which helped to facilitate their capture.
The accused were each charged with one count of possession for the purpose of trafficking.
Match was charged with inflicting fear of injury in a 2007 incident in Delta that saw him fined $500 and put on a yearlong peace bond out of Surrey provincial court.
Virk was on probation when he was arrested from an assault conviction in March that came while he was on probation from a previous assault in May 2008 in Pitt Meadows.
Considering the amount of cocaine seized in the incident, police said at the time it was likely there were gang connections behind the smuggling attempt.
