Pubdate: Fri, 24 Jun 2005
Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2005, Canoe Limited Partnership.
Contact:  http://torontosun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/457
Author: Tom Godfrey

FLIGHT OF THE DRUG DEAL

Gang Used Cleaners To Bring $100M In Drugs Into Toronto's Pearson, 
Tom Godfrey Reports

THE SIX Air Canada cleaners at Pearson airport had sky-high taste -- 
BMWs, Jags, Mercedes, clothes, travel, the best that money could buy.

As part of a gang that smuggled $100 million in drugs through the 
airport in two years from Jamaica, money was not a problem -- until 
an elite law enforcement team brought them down to earth.

Last Friday the last of the drug ring was dealt with by the courts. 
Allan Quidley, 35, the second-in-command of the gang, was found 
guilty. Eight others were found guilty or had pleaded guilty to drug 
smuggling. One was acquitted.

They had all been ratted out by their boss, Jeffrey "Clean Face" 
Cahill, who after his arrest was desperate to escape jail time.

Cahill's testimony helped convict the nine dope smugglers -- 
including four Air Canada "cleaners" who prepped planes between 
flights -- whom he lured into drug running by flashing wads of cold, hard cash.

"Clean Face" Cahill, a white Canadian from Brampton, enlisted a crew 
that was mostly from Jamaica to bring in drugs from Kingston and Montego Bay.

The economics that fuelled the scheme were simple: A kilo of cocaine 
could be bought in Jamaica for $6,000 and then resold in Canada for 
more than $30,000.

During an 11-month international probe, police made 18 seizures 
totalling about $40 million that included 31 kilos of cocaine, 44 
kilos of hash oil and 23 kilos of hash hidden in compartments of jets 
arriving at Pearson.

Police estimate that the gang moved at least $100 million in drugs 
over the two years it was in business.

With one phone call, Cahill, 44, could order kilos of cocaine, hash, 
hash oil or marijuana to be planted on Air Canada flights in Jamaica.

Cahill's drug ring -- one of at least two, according to court 
testimony, operating at Pearson at the time -- included couriers who 
took the drugs on the planes in Jamaica, those who hid it in 
compartments, and others who removed the stash and snuck it from the airport.

Eleven suspected ring members were arrested in November 2000 by a 
team created from officers of the Toronto Airport Drug Enforcement 
Unit (TADEU) which included the Mounties, Canada Customs, OPP, and 
Toronto and Peel police forces.

The task force was called Project O'Booker -- "O" after the RCMP 
division involved and "Booker" after their first suspect, a ticket 
booking agent who was later acquitted.

The airline employees had all passed extensive RCMP and CSIS checks 
to ensure they had no criminal records and weren't threats to 
national security.

Evidence presented in court showed drug couriers were escorted past 
security to board flights in Montego Bay. Another gang member would 
take wooden hand tools -- wood so they could be carried undetected 
through airport X-ray checks -- and unscrew panels and compartments 
to hide the drugs from customs.

The Jamaican ground crew would contact their cohorts in Toronto by 
cellphone when the plane was in the air to tell them in code where 
the drugs were hidden.

The locations were referred to as street names and addresses -- Row 
18, Seat K became 18 Keele St.

The dope was hidden in avionics wiring panels, under garbage cans, in 
vents, and behind panels in the toilets, walls and ceilings of the jets.

Cahill testified he would spend hours scouring planes with tools 
searching for new hiding places.

Some of the cleaners in his crew would act as lookouts as others 
removed the drugs, which they hid in their clothing or in a cart. The 
drugs were hidden on airport property until they could be smuggled 
out in knapsacks or lunch boxes.

The Mounties said the drugs were handed over to higher-ups in secret 
meetings at airport-area coffee shops or restaurants. Cahill 
testified he was earning more than $50,000 a month from smuggling in 
addition to the $40,000 yearly income from his Air Canada day job 
that offered him, and other cell members, cheap travel under the 
airline's "buddy system."

The 11-year Air Canada veteran was a lead groomer, responsible for a 
crew of four to 13 people who cleaned the jets after they touched 
down. He was earning about $18 an hour.

"I was in a situation where I needed money because I was desperately 
in debt," Cahill testified. "I owed a lot of people money that I had 
no way of repaying."

His ring was removing up to 10 shipments a week, he said. Sometimes 
two or three stashes of drugs were taken from one flight.

He said he was being paid from $6,000 to $10,000 to remove a package 
of dope from a flight.

"All I did was to take it off the plane and give it to someone else," 
Cahill said. "I had access to anywhere in the airport as long as I 
had my pass."

Sometimes drugs had to be left on planes because of nearby customs or 
police officers. In those cases, the drugs were allowed to continue 
with the aircraft and removed when the plane returned to Pearson.

"We would track the aircraft number on a computer to find out when it 
was returning to Pearson," Cahill said. "We would remove the drugs then."

He said most of the time he removed the drugs on his days off and 
borrowed members of another Pearson smuggling ring to remove dope 
when his cell was short of bodies.

Busting Cahill's crew appears to have only made a dent in criminal 
activity at Pearson.

The RCMP estimate there are now about a dozen smuggling groups 
involved in organized crime at Pearson, a prized trophy for the Hells 
Angels bike gang, who already have a network in place.
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MAP posted-by: Beth