Vancouver drug dealer relied on taxi to conduct fentanyl and heroin transactions

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      A father who facilitated the sale of 5,000 fentanyl pills in taxicabs has been sentenced to seven years in jail.

      According to a recent Provincial Court decision, Raymon Singh Ranu came under police surveillance in late 2014 at a home on East 27th Avenue in Vancouver.

      His grey Range Rover showed up at the house on 47 of 57 days.

      An undercover officer was brought in and he faked a drug deal in front of a taxi driver only identified as "Mr. Khan".

      This driver then referred the cop to Ranu.

      "On occasion, drugs were provided to the officer by Mr. Ranu," Judge Nancy Phillips wrote in her decision. "On other occasions, someone else in the taxi handled drugs or money while Mr. Ranu was in the vehicle, or by someone else after Mr. Ranu had negotiated a deal with the officer. Mr. Khan and his taxi cab appear to have been at Mr. Ranu’s beck and call, indicative of financial means and detection avoidance."

      A search warrant was executed on the East 27th Avenue home in February 2015, yielding pleny of drugs, two pistols, and an extended ammunition magazine.

      Phillips concluded that Ranu was "either constructively or jointly in possession of the drugs but not of the weapons".

      Another raid occured at Ranu's home on Tomicki Avenue in Richmond. There, police found $2,400 in marked bills from the undercover officer's purchase of drugs, plus keys to the stash house on East 27th Avenue.

      Ranu was convicted on 13 counts of trafficking in heroin, fentanyl, and cocaine.

      "He was found in possession of money obtained from the sale of drugs and over $1,000,000 in drugs were located in the stash house," Phillips noted.

      The decision also revealed that Ranu, 32, is the father of a three-year-old son. He claimed in court that he's now a settled family man and he had been working as a cook in Aldergrove since 2015.

      However, the judge also noted that Ranu had a prior drug conviction in 2008. Plus, he knew how powerful fentanyl was, yet he continued distributing the drug.

      "The quantity of the drugs involved show Mr. Ranu was not a low-level drug distributor," Phillips wrote. "Mr. Ranu made clear to the undercover officer that he was not his only fentanyl customer and he spoke of another client who bought batches of 10,000 pills from him. The 7.87 kilograms of cocaine and just over 2 kilograms of heroin found at the stash house show he was also involved in other drugs in considerable quantities."