MAN CONVICTED IN CARFENTANIL BUST SENTENCED TO 20 YEARS

A judge has sentenced a man to 20 years in prison for his role in a Pickering drug operation that has been described as the largest seizure ever of carfentanil in Canada.

Maisum Ansari, convicted on more than 100 charges relating to the discovery of a cache of drugs and guns in a house he owned, was "a ready facilitator" of the operation, Superior Court judge Hugh O'Connell said in handing down the sentence on Monday, May 29.

During the sentencing, the judge repeatedly highlighted the danger presented by carfentanil, an exceptionally powerful opioid.

"Carfentanil is in a league of its own," he said. "It is, as far as I know, the most sinister of all the drugs out there."

The 20-year sentence is comparable to that given to the main player in the gun and drug operation, Babar Ali, who was sentenced to 23 years and fined $1 million after pleading guilty in February of 2022. The Crown has described the drug seizure as the largest of its kind in Canada.

Ansari intends to appeal his conviction, court heard Monday.

Ansari and Ali were arrested after firefighters responding to an alarm entered the basement apartment

of the home in September 2017 and discovered what appeared to be trays of drugs on the premises. A family with young children were renting the upper floor of the house at the time, unaware of activity in the basement, court heard.

Ansari, who lived in Oshawa at the time of his arrest, pleaded not guilty to all charges and testified in his own defence, claiming to have no knowledge or control of the guns and drugs kept in the house. He said that shortly after emergency crews responded to the home, he had a meeting with Ali, who told him to "keep his mouth shut," the judge noted in his ruling. Ansari claimed he felt alarmed and threatened by Ali's comments.

Court heard Ansari advanced to police a lie that a

fictional person was the real occupant of the apartment, something he said he did out of fear of Ali. But O'Connell rejected that and other testimony by Ansari, noting he found aspects of Ansari's story "passing strange."

The trial began in March 2021 and evidence appeared to be complete after the Crown's case concluded. But the trial was reopened when Ansari decided to testify. Judgment was set for September 2022, but was adjourned several times before a verdict was delivered in early February of this year.

Defence lawyer Leora Shemesh immediately filed an application to have the charges stayed, arguing Ansari's Charter right to a timely trial had been breached. That motion was dismissed in March.