RCMP investigation targeting the Nanaimo Hells Angels

The Supreme Court of BC posted a decision involving the sale of cocaine and an uzi tied to members of the the Nanaimo Hells Angels. The name of the case is Rex vs William Karl Paulsen, Kristopher Stephen Smith and William Bradley Thompson. BTW remember Zeke? I am told the Vietnamese didn't kill Zeke, the Hells Angels did. That's from a reliable source who was there. 

[1]            On the indictment before the Court, Kristopher Stephen Smith is charged with trafficking cocaine on September 13, 2019 (Count 1), unlawful possession and transfer of a firearm (Counts 5 and 6), and trafficking cocaine and oxycodone (Counts 7 and 8) on October 31, 2019.

[2]            Mr. Smith and William Bradley Thompson are jointly charged with unlawfully transferring a prohibited firearm to an undercover police officer on February 25, 2020 (Count 19). Mr. Thompson alone is charged with unlawful possession of various prohibited, restricted and non-restricted firearms, with or without readily accessible ammunition, possession of prohibited devices, possession of firearms, prohibited devices and ammunition while prohibited from doing so, and possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking, on August 14, 2020 (Counts 24-32).

[3]            The indictment also contains multiple counts of cocaine trafficking against William Karl Paulsen, who entered guilty pleas many months ago and is presently serving a seven-year penitentiary sentence.

[4]            All of these charges followed a joint police force project called E-Parodinia, which was part of a “multi-pronged” investigation spearheaded by the RCMP beginning in June 2018. The objective was to gather information about the criminal activities of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (“HAMC”) in Nanaimo. Much of the Crown’s evidence was obtained by the interception of private communications authorised by a Provincial Court judge under s. 184.2 of the Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46. The consenting parties were a police agent codenamed “Easton” and various undercover police officers involved in formulating and enacting over 50 investigative scenarios.

[5]            The RCMP cultivated Easton as a source of underworld information not long after he was released on parole from a federal penitentiary having served the custodial portion of a 42-month sentence for gang-related criminal offending, including drug trafficking. Easton started off as a paid confidential police informer and was eventually vetted, trained and hired as a paid police agent. His first letter of agreement setting out the terms of his engagement was signed in September 2019. By then he had become a close friend of Mr. Smith, who had recently been inducted as a “full-patch” member of the HAMC. Mr. Smith was a target of the E-Parodinia investigation from the very beginning. Easton’s role as a police agent was to infiltrate the HAMC through Mr. Smith, a reasonably rare opportunity which the police were understandably keen to exploit.

[8]            The evidence behind Count 19 of the indictment is that, on February 25, 2020, Mr. Smith and Mr. Thompson jointly organized the sale of an Uzi submachine gun to an undercover police officer (“UC Kyle”), who was posing as the local agent of a drug dealer from Ontario (also an undercover police officer known as “UC Eric”), and had recently purchased a kilogram of cocaine from Mr. Paulsen using traceable currency approved for expenditure by RCMP Headquarters in Ottawa. Easton had been instructed by his handlers to introduce the topic of gun trafficking in his dealings with Mr. Smith, as they had grounds to believe that he was engaged in that sort of commerce. The Uzi transaction was part of a planned scenario devised by Easton’s handlers after Mr. Smith sent Easton text and voice messages saying that Mr. Thompson had the Uzi submachine gun in his present possession and was willing to sell it. The Crown alleges that Mr. Thompson made the sale, that Mr. Smith facilitated it, and that both of them profited from it.

[15]         As for Count 6, Mr. Smith concedes that he transferred the subject non-restricted Dominion Arms firearm to Easton. He did this, I find, because he was not lawfully licensed or authorized to possess it, and he wanted to avoid detection and arrest by police officers whom he expected imminently to arrive at his house with a search warrant. This followed a misadventure, earlier in the day, involving his then-wife, Lindsey Smith, who, if I understood the evidence correctly, advertised a pair of her shoes for sale over the Internet forgetting that she had hidden a baggie of cocaine in one of them. The purchaser came to Mr. Smith’s residence to collect the shoes, found the baggie, and promptly called the police.

[49]         In summary, I find Mr. Smith guilty of every count in the indictment in which he is named, including Counts 6 and 19, the only ones that he disputed. Mr. Thompson has invited me to convict him on Count 19, and for the reasons given in this judgment a conviction is entered on that count. The evidence against him is conclusive of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt independent of his invitation. As for the counts of the indictment that resulted from the search of his residence on August 14, 2020, I have concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that he was in unlicensed possession of the items found in the gun safe in his garage listed in Counts 24-28 and Count 30. Because he has admitted, and the evidence amply establishes, that he was bound by a court order prohibiting him from possessing those items, he is guilty of Count 31 as well. I find him not guilty of Count 29 (possession of the Uzi stun gun). For the reasons given just now, I find him guilty of Count 32, possession of cocaine for the purposes of trafficking.

Uzi stun gun? An uzi stun gun is not an uzi machine gun yet [8] does say submachine gun.