(JENNIFER STAHN / iNFOnews.ca)
June 16, 2022 - 12:32 PM
A father and son will return to court in Kamloops three years after police seized $800,000 of drugs from a commercial truck near the city.
In March 2020, B.C. RCMP Traffic Services uncovered seven kilograms of cocaine, one kilogram of methamphetamine, 516 grams of fentanyl, and 254 pounds of cannabis, along with several cell phones and a GPS from a commercial truck at the Kamloops weigh scales.
During an inspection, the drugs were found in the sleeper compartment, which was valued at $845,000.
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Gerart and Artan Caci were each charged with four counts of possession for the purposes of trafficking.
Gerart, born in 1986, and Artan, born in 1954, were scheduled to appear at Kamloops Supreme Court earlier this week.
Neither are in custody and the court scheduled a pre-trial conference for April 26, 2023.
A judge and lawyers will discuss what evidence can be used in the trial, and the seizure of both the truck and the drugs could be an issue.
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In a March 2021 B.C. Supreme Court decision, Justice Robert Punnett upheld an earlier court decision which prevented the RCMP from keeping the semi-truck which it had seized after a routine commercial vehicle inspection that uncovered large amounts of drugs.
Police needed to maintain legal jurisdiction over the evidence in order to keep it in the case, but failed several times to do so.
It's not clear where that left the evidence, but the case is proceeding through the courts and still expected to end up at a trial next year.
Defense lawyer Nelson Selamaj, who represents both accused, did not respond to a request for comment from iNFOnews.ca.
— With files from Ben Bulmer.
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