Vancouver taxi driver sentenced for using cab to distribute cocaine

A taxi cab meter is shown in this undated file photo.

A Vancouver taxi driver who used his cab to distribute cocaine throughout the Lower Mainland as part of a dial-a-dope operation has been sentenced to house arrest.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Heather MacNaughton convicted MD Rafiqul Islam of one count of possessing cocaine for the purposes of trafficking back in February.

Last week, the judge handed the 56-year-old man a 20-month conditional sentence for his role in a trafficking ring that she described as a “sophisticated enterprise involving the sale of drugs to mid-level traffickers.”

“Although his role was more akin to that of a courier of drugs or of people involved in the sale of drugs,” MacNaughton wrote in her Nov. 3 sentencing decision, “without him and his taxi, the dial-a-dope operation would not have been possible.”

Project Tache

Islam was arrested after the Vancouver Police Department launched “Project Tache,” a June 2021 sting operation that was instigated when a police informant provided a tip about a taxi shuttling drugs around Metro Vancouver.

Islam was a part-owner of the taxi along with one other person, the judge wrote, however Islam was the sole driver of the cab during the police surveillance operation.

According to court documents, police observed Islam over several weeks as he picked up and dropped off three suspected drug traffickers at multi-unit residential buildings in downtown Vancouver.

The judge described the locations as “stash sites” for the dial-a-dope operation.

Two of the suspected traffickers who rode in Islam’s taxi – Charles Flynn and Jordan Trembley – were eventually charged and later pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine and fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking, the court heard.

“Surveillance officers observed short-duration meetings, some involving exchanges, consistent with drug-trafficking, occurring inside the taxi,” MacNaughton wrote. “On other occasions, the taxi dropped off and picked up the traffickers at the stash sites.”

‘Entirely unbelievable’

At trial, Islam testified that he was unaware of the drug trafficking happening inside the taxi, telling the court he was just an ordinary taxi driver.

“This evidence was entirely unbelievable,” the judge wrote. “It did not accord with the whole of the evidence, with common sense, or with human experience. The taxi was not operating normally, and the traffickers were not ordinary taxi riders.”

The judge went on to say Islam had full knowledge and control over the cocaine that was found in his cab when he was arrested alongside Flynn on June 24, 2021.

“Cocaine may not be fentanyl, but it is still a deadly serious, lethal drug,” MacNaughton wrote, addressing Islam directly. “The sale of it continues to wreak havoc across our community in the Lower Mainland, this province, and our country – not only in lives wasted and lost but indirectly through the commission of offences to support drug habits to pay for the sorts of drugs that you assisted in distributing.”

First-time offender

The Crown prosecutor argued for a 12-month jail sentence for Islam, while his defence counsel contended that a 16-month conditional sentence plus community service was appropriate.

“Despite the gravity of Mr. Islam’s offence and his moral blameworthiness, Mr. Islam’s performance in the community in the four years since his arrest, the fact that he is a first-time offender, and that he appears to have found replacement work, demonstrating his potential for rehabilitation, factor heavily in my assessment,” MacNaughton concluded.

“To incarcerate Mr. Islam in a correctional facility would risk derailing the progress he has made.”

The judge ordered Islam to spend the first year of his sentence under house arrest and the remaining eight months under a nighttime curfew.