A woman caught attempting to transport close to a kilogram of fentanyl from the Lower Mainland to Vancouver Island in 2019 has been sentenced to eight years in prison, despite having no previous criminal record.
Hong Dinh, a 35-year-old Mission resident who also goes by the name of Carrie Dinh, was arrested with a blue cloth bag containing a brick of fentanyl while travelling to the Tsawwassen ferry terminal on May 3, 2019.
Police surveillance observed her travelling on the B.C. Ferries route from Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen, and then driving to a parking lot in Langley.
There, she met with another vehicle, exchanged bags with the driver, and put a blue cloth bag she received in the trunk of her vehicle.
She then drove back towards the Tsawwassen ferry terminal and was arrested prior to her arrival at the terminal.
Dinh was convicted in April of possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking. She was given her sentencing this month.
In the sentencing decision, issued on Jan. 10, Justice Gordon Weatherill excoriated drug traffickers who he said are causing the deaths of many vulnerable people.
“Drug trafficking is a scourge on our society, rooted in greed on the part of those who perpetrate it,” he said.
“The fentanyl brick was found in the blue cloth bag in her vehicle’s trunk,” Weatherill said, adding that the 994-gram brick of fentanyl had a purity level between 62 per cent and 71 per cent.
That brick had a street value between $5 million and $9 million and could have produced 200,000 to 600,000 doses, he said.
While conceding Dinh was a “mere courier,” the Crown asked for a nine-year sentence.
The defence had sought a sentence between four and six years.
Dinh, who has no addiction history or prior criminal record, claimed to have no knowledge of what she was transporting.
“It appears that Ms. Dinh is a person who led a productive and law‑abiding life, but made a mistake that was out of character and became involved in the drug‑trafficking world,” Weatherill said. “It appears that since her conviction, she has returned to a productive and law‑abiding life.”
More than 2,5oo people died of suspected illicit drug poisoning last year, the highest annual number recorded.
B.C.’s chief coroner Lisa Lapointe said at a news conference Wednesday that the surging death toll has been caused by illicit fentanyl supply, which continues to be the main driver in drug deaths.
It’s estimated that 225,000 people in B.C. access their drugs from the illicit market.
Close to 14,000 people have died since the province declared a public health emergency of the toxic drug crisis in April 2016.
— With a file from The Canadian Press
