B.C. meth smuggler with Yakuza ties sentenced to eight years

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A Richmond methamphetamine smuggler with links to the Japanese Yakuza cartel was sentenced Tuesday to eight years in prison.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Wendy Baker accepted a joint sentencing submission made by federal prosecutor Dan Meneley and Chun Yu Luk’s lawyer Chantal Paquette.

Luk was convicted last December on nine counts, including exporting almost 20 kilograms of methamphetamine to Japan and possessing for the purpose of trafficking fentanyl, carfentanil, methamphetamine, cocaine and MDMA.

Baker said the eight years was appropriate because “the volume of drugs and money found with Mr. Luk take him out of the range of the low-level trafficker.”

She noted that the fentanyl found in his Richmond condo at 8080 Cambie St. was estimated to be worth almost $500,000, while the exported meth was valued at between $200,000 and $300,000.

She accepted that Luk worked within a mid-level organization that was involved in both local street sales, as well as some international drug shipments.

“The drugs that were being trafficked were serious drugs and are responsible for many deaths in the province. This is conduct which leans in favour of a lengthier sentence,” Baker said.

Meneley entered the agreed statement of facts in the case, which laid out the origins of the investigation into Luk’s group, which began six years ago.

In August 2019, the Canada Border Services Agency examined a package mailed to Japan from a postal outlet inside a Richmond tea store. Testing showed it contained methamphetamine. The Japanese National Police Agency was contacted and a controlled delivery was arranged.

A month later, a second package was sent from the Aberdeen Mall.

“Again, a controlled delivery was arranged in conjunction with the (Japanese National Police Agency),” the statement said.

Photos and video from the two postal outlets showed Luk and a second accused, Shuai Yuan, mailing the packages.

The RCMP then watched Luk making drug transactions on Nov. 8, 2019. A search warrant was executed in June 2020 at the Richmond condo Luk shared with his common-law spouse Ya Bobo Chen. Yuan was also in the unit when police arrived.

That is where all the other drugs were located, as well as a firearm, a replica gun, two tasers, three laptops, nine mobile phones, four sets of scales and a radio jammer.

The Mounties also seized more than $95,000 in the condo, which has been the subject of a civil forfeiture lawsuit. Luk agreed to forfeit the cash and other items as part of the sentencing.

Paquette noted that Luk had struggled with both mental illness and substance use disorder, leading to some of his criminal history.

“He had an unstable childhood. His criminal record really started after a downward spiral when his father committed suicide,” she told Baker. “His father had some gambling issues, and his mother found out, asked for a divorce, and it led to Mr. Luk’s father dying by suicide, which was very difficult on him, understandably, and that led him to use substances more heavily and to associate with negative peers and really make some bad choices.”

But both Paquette and Meneley agreed that at the time of the drug offences in 2019 and 2020, Luk was stable and receiving treatment for his mental illness.

“In these circumstances, his moral culpability is not reduced by his mental illness,” Meneley said. “In fact, his successful treatment enabled these offences.”

Chen had also been facing drug charges, but those were stayed Tuesday after Luk was sentenced.

Meanwhile, the whereabouts of Yuan, Luk’s alleged accomplice, is currently unknown. A warrant has been issued for his arrest.

When they was charged in 2022, the RCMP said it had dismantled “a B.C.-based international organized crime network” with associates in Japan who had “confirmed ties to the infamous Japanese Yakuza transnational organized crime syndicate.”

kbolan@postmedia.com

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