Accused B.C. fentanyl smuggler’s case illustrates complexity of cross-border drug trade

It was just after midnight on Aug. 24, 2011, when U.S. Border Patrol agents spotted Canadians Kevin Gartry and Robert Jansen walking suspiciously in Blaine, a stone’s throw from the B.C. border.

As the agents tried to make contact with the two men, they fled. Both tossed cocaine-filled backpacks into the bushes before they were arrested.

Officers found both men and both bags, seizing about 15 kilograms of cocaine and US$66,450.

Less than a year later, Gartry pleaded guilty in a Seattle courtroom to conspiracy to distribute cocaine. He admitted the coke was destined for B.C.

“I am a Canadian citizen and regretfully I was a drug smuggler. I don’t like this title and I’m embarrassed by it. I understand completely that I’ve brought this title on myself,” Gartry said in his letter to U.S. Federal Court Judge James Robart. “I loathe that this is who I became and the identity I lived. I am apologetic in every way for what I’ve done.”

He promised to do better after serving his 10-year sentence.

Gartry was sent home to Canada in May 2020, two months into COVID-19 and despite getting a second U.S. conviction in 2019 for bribing a public official over several months in 2017 so he and other inmates could smuggle contraband into their La Tuna, Texas, prison.

Instead of starting that new life he pledged to pursue in 2012, Gartry was soon facing more cross-border drug smuggling charges.

And this time the substance he was accused of smuggling wasn’t cocaine. It was almost a kilo of deadly fentanyl and more than 181 kilos of methamphetamine found on a beach near Port Angeles, Wash., in April 2021. Total estimated value: US$7 million.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced the new charges in December 2022, noting that Gartry’s co-accused, Erika Bocelle of Rhode Island and John Michael Sherwood of Idaho, had already made their first court appearances in Seattle on the three-count indictment.

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Like his American associates, Gartry was facing charges of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, possession of controlled substances with intent to distribute, and conspiracy to commit international money laundering.

“Gartry is a notorious Canadian cross-border drug smuggler,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Vincent Lombardi said in a July, 2024, court filing. “During that prior case, Gartry admitted to using a Jet Ski and other personal watercraft to smuggle drugs over the maritime border.”

The B.C. man is in prison in Canada after 2023 convictions for a series of break-and-enters across the Lower Mainland the previous year. American officials have said his extradition is pending.