B.C. man sentenced to 8 years for selling fentanyl, meth in Alberta

Fentanyl is displayed before a news conference at RCMP headquarters, in Surrey, B.C., on Thursday, October 31, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

A British Columbia man has been sentenced to eight years in prison for selling large quantities of fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine through a so-called “dial-a-dope” operation in Alberta.

Manjot Singh Gill, a 28-year-old from Surrey, pleaded guilty to four charges, including for drug trafficking, possessing property obtained through crime and breaching a probation order prohibiting him from possessing drugs.

Gill was charged following an undercover police investigation that involved more than 250 law enforcement personnel from multiple jurisdictions, including Calgary and Edmonton.

At his sentencing hearing last month in New Westminster, the court heard how Gill and his associates sold drugs “in a sophisticated fashion,” using rental cars, pseudonyms, stash pads and burner phones, wrote B.C. Supreme Court Justice Tina Dion.

Some members of the trafficking operation even worked a regular schedule with three weeks on the job, followed by three weeks off, according to the judge.

But there were apparently cracks in the organization, with Gill selling drugs to undercover police on multiple occasions and boasting of the quality of the fentanyl the group was bringing into Edmonton from Calgary and parts of B.C., the court heard.

Police search Edmonton apartments

Gill was arrested on Jan. 12, 2021, after police searched two Edmonton apartments that were serving as stash pads.

The Surrey man was found alone in the kitchen of one of the suites where investigators would also find 1.6 kilograms of meth, 170 grams of fentanyl and various cutting agents, according to the court.

One of Gill’s associates was found in the other apartment, along with more than 40 grams each of fentanyl and crack cocaine, as well as $45,895 in cash and nine cellphones.

The money was seized and later put through a scanning device that identified $860 had come buyers who were undercover police officers, the judge wrote.

Nonetheless, one of the officers, who was still working undercover, received a text message two weeks after the arrests, stating that Gill and his associate were back in business, according to the court.

“They explained they would be back in town in two days,” the judge wrote. “That undercover police officer received a text message on Jan. 31, 2021, advising that Mr. Gill and his associate were back in town and had fentanyl and methamphetamine for sale.”

Gill wasn’t formally charged until September 2021. He pleaded guilty in November 2024 to four of the 13 charges, with the remaining charges against him dropped by Crown prosecutors following his sentencing hearing.

‘Profiting off death’

Gill’s criminal history includes five previous charges from 2018 in Surrey, namely for three counts of drug trafficking, one count of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle and one count of failing to stop at the scene of an accident.

For those convictions, he was sentenced to 18 months in jail followed by 18 months of probation, which expired in November 2020.

“It is clear that Mr. Gill was profiting off the death of members of our society,” the judge wrote in her decision to impose a global sentence of eight years in the Edmonton case.

“He directly contributed to the statistics in the death rate of addicted persons whom he trafficked to,” she continued. “Mr. Gill’s participation in the drug trafficking scheme was for profit. He was not addicted to any of these substances. His participation was for greed.”

Gill was also ordered to provide a DNA sample and was prohibited from possessing firearms and ammunition for life.