'Ice-age' era spearhead unearthed by accident on Paris, Ont., farm
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Yahoo
6 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Richmond meth smuggler with Yakuza ties sentenced to eight years
A Richmond methamphetamine smuggler with links to the Japanese Yakuza cartel was sentenced Tuesday to eight years in prison. B.C. Supreme Court Justice Wendy Baker accepted a joint sentencing submission made by federal prosecutor Dan Meneley and Chun Yu Luk's lawyer Chantal Paquette. Luk was convicted last December on nine counts, including exporting almost 20 kilograms of methamphetamine to Japan and possessing for the purpose of trafficking fentanyl, carfentanil, methamphetamine, cocaine and MDMA. Baker said the eight years was appropriate because 'the volume of drugs and money found with Mr. Luk take him out of the range of the low-level trafficker.' She noted that the fentanyl found in his Richmond condo at 8080 Cambie St. was estimated to be worth almost $500,000, while the exported meth was valued at between $200,000 and $300,000. She accepted that Luk worked within a mid-level organization that was involved in both local street sales, as well as some international drug shipments. 'The drugs that were being trafficked were serious drugs and are responsible for many deaths in the province. This is conduct which leans in favour of a lengthier sentence,' Baker said. Meneley entered the agreed statement of facts in the case, which laid out the origins of the investigation into Luk's group, which began six years ago. In August 2019, the Canada Border Services Agency examined a package mailed to Japan from a postal outlet inside a Richmond tea store. Testing showed it contained methamphetamine. The Japanese National Police Agency was contacted and a controlled delivery was arranged. A month later, a second package was sent from the Aberdeen Mall. 'Again, a controlled delivery was arranged in conjunction with the (Japanese National Police Agency),' the statement said. Photos and video from the two postal outlets showed Luk and a second accused, Shuai Yuan, mailing the packages. The RCMP then watched Luk making drug transactions on Nov. 8, 2019. A search warrant was executed in June 2020 at the Richmond condo Luk shared with his common-law spouse Ya Bobo Chen. Yuan was also in the unit when police arrived. That is where all the other drugs were located, as well as a firearm, a replica gun, two tasers, three laptops, nine mobile phones, four sets of scales and a radio jammer. The Mounties also seized more than $95,000 in the condo, which has been the subject of a civil forfeiture lawsuit. Luk agreed to forfeit the cash and other items as part of the sentencing. Paquette noted that Luk had struggled with both mental illness and substance use disorder, leading to some of his criminal history. 'He had an unstable childhood. His criminal record really started after a downward spiral when his father committed suicide,' she told Baker. 'His father had some gambling issues, and his mother found out, asked for a divorce, and it led to Mr. Luk's father dying by suicide, which was very difficult on him, understandably, and that led him to use substances more heavily and to associate with negative peers and really make some bad choices.' But both Paquette and Meneley agreed that at the time of the drug offences in 2019 and 2020, Luk was stable and receiving treatment for his mental illness. 'In these circumstances, his moral culpability is not reduced by his mental illness,' Meneley said. 'In fact, his successful treatment enabled these offences.' Chen had also been facing drug charges, but those were stayed Tuesday after Luk was sentenced. Meanwhile, the whereabouts of Yuan, Luk's alleged accomplice, is currently unknown. A warrant has been issued for his arrest. When they was charged in 2022, the RCMP said it had dismantled 'a B.C.-based international organized crime network' with associates in Japan who had 'confirmed ties to the infamous Japanese Yakuza transnational organized crime syndicate.' kbolan@ Bluesky: @ Related Traveller charged with trafficking after meth found wrapped as gifts in suitcase Man charged with second-degree murder in 2024 Langley homicide
Yahoo
36 minutes ago
- Yahoo
New Epstein Documents Reveal Details About His Life
Guest and Jeffrey Epstein attend the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show at the Plaza Hotel in New York City on August 1, 1995. Credit - Patrick McMullan—Getty Images Previously unseen letters to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, along with photographs from inside his seven-story Manhattan mansion, were published by the New York Times on Tuesday. The tranche of pictures and letters from well-known artists and politicians offers a glimpse into the New York financier's life and relationships in the years leading up to his arrest for sex trafficking in 2019. They include messages for his 63rd birthday in 2016 from director Woody Allen, former prime minister of Israel Ehud Barak, real estate billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman, along with linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky. 'Being neighbors, my wife Soon-Yi and I have been invited for dinner many times. Always accept, always interesting. Wide variety of interesting people at every dinner just about Politicians, scientists, teachers, magicians, comedians, intellectuals, journalists…' Allen's letter reportedly says. He then likens the dinners to those at the castle to the 1931 movie adaptation of Dracula Dracula, where 'where Lugosi has three young female vampires who service the place.' Read More: A Timeline of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein's Relationship as It Draws Renewed Attention Another letter from Barak and his wife reportedly describes Epstein as a 'collector of people.' The Times did not publish a scan of this letter as it did with Allen's, but reports that it concludes with a refrain that Epstein's friends may "enjoy your table for many more years to come.' TIME attempted to reach Barak, Chomsky, Zuckerman, and Allen for comment. The New York Times also published photographs from inside Epstein's mansion showing him with powerful global and financial figures Pope John Paul II, Mick Jagger, Elon Musk, Bill Clinton and Fidel Castro. They photograph a framed dollar bill signed by billionaire Bill Gates, with the caption 'I was wrong!' written on it. Also framed is the now-infamous photo of Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, Epstein and Maxwell, taken in 2000, but with Maxwell not in frame. Epstein's relationship with the rich and powerful has been the subject of intense speculation in the years since his arrest and death by suicide in 2019. Read more: Is Donald Trump Named in the Epstein Files—and Why Won't the Questions Go Away? The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Trump had sent his own letter to Epstein in a book for his 50th birthday in 2003—long before his crimes became public knowledge. Trump has denied writing the letter and accompanying 'bawdy' drawing that the Journal reports is in the book, and the President sued the newspaper's parent firms Dow Jones and News Corp, its owner Rupert Murdoch, and two reporters over the report. The President has sought to play down his connection to Epstein over the years. He has said consistently that he broke off his friendship long before any allegations of his crimes came to light. He recently gave more details about the split when he said he fell out with the financier after Epstein 'stole' Virginia Giuffre, who later became a victim of Epstein, from the President's spa at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, where she worked as a 16-year-old in 2000. The Trump Administration has faced criticism for its refusal to release the so-called 'Epstein files,' after many within Trump's inner circle claimed for years that their contents would expose serious crimes by powerful people. The case has consumed both Republicans and Democrats as both parties search for answers. On Tuesday, the House Oversight Committee, led by Republicans, subpoenaed the Justice Department on files related to Epstein, calling for the DOJ to turn over all investigative materials related to his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell's sex trafficking operation. Just last week, Maxwell was quietly moved to a minimum-security prison in Texas, soon after she met with the DOJ's Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, prompting anger from Democrats. Contact us at letters@
Washington Post
39 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Trump threatens federal takeover of D.C. after attack on DOGE worker
A protégé of Elon Musk and former DOGE staffer was injured in an attempted carjacking early Sunday morning in D.C., two people familiar with the incident said, in an attack that captured the attention of President Donald Trump and reinspired his threats to take over the nation's capital. 'If D.C. doesn't get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they're not going to get away with it anymore,' Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social.
