Judge tosses key warrants in Maple Ridge’s largest fentanyl bust, citing ‘misleading’ RCMP evidence
A BC Supreme Court judge has ruled that key search warrants used by the Ridge Meadows RCMP’s in a historic fentanyl bust were unlawfully obtained.
Justice David Layton found that police relied on “materially misleading” information to justify tracking the phone of Alen Kadunic, an alleged dealer who has been charged with multiple counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking.
In a April 7 decision, the court found that warrants used to track a cellphone believed to belong to Kadunic were issued without sufficient grounds, resulting in a breach of his Charter rights.
The case stems from a five-month investigation in 2021 by the Street Enforcement Unit of the Ridge Meadows RCMP, which targets drug and property crime across Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows.
At its conclusion, police described the resulting seizures at the largest fentanyl in the detachment’s history.
The investigation initially focused on another individual before broadening to a network involving street-level dealers.
Undercover officers made multiple controlled purchases of fentanyl and cocaine in October and November 2021, including transactions tied to a phone number linked to a woman identified in court as April Fraser.
During one November 12, 2021 deal in Maple Ridge, Fraser told an undercover officer she needed to contact her “boss” to negotiate pricing. Investigators later sought warrants to track a second phone number they believed belonged to that supplier.
Those warrants – one to collect transmission data and another to track location – became the focus of the Charter challenge.
Layton found the warrants were based on flawed analysis of phone records prepared by another officer, which incorrectly linked the suspected “boss” to a specific phone number.
That officer’s notes clearly indicated the critical call from the “boss” was incoming, not outgoing, and occurred at a different time than the call identified in the report. This resulted in potential timing issues in the data, but police failed to investigate further.
Layton said this resulted in negligence to provide “full, fair and frank disclosure” to the judge reviewing the warrant application.
He concluded the officer who swore the warrant application should have caught the error, particularly given inconsistencies with undercover notes.
Layton said “something (was) seriously amiss” in the methodology used to connect the phone number to the alleged drug supplier, the ruling found, noting the affiant had a duty to ensure full, fair and accurate disclosure.
The mistake was not minor, he found, but went to the core of the police theory, which was the only evidence tying the targeted phone number to drug trafficking.
Once the misleading information was removed from the warrant application, the judge found there was no reliable evidence linking the phone number to the alleged offences.
Layton emphasized that while officers are entitled to rely on colleagues’ reports, they must still critically assess that information – especially when inconsistencies are apparent.
Without the connection, the legal threshold for issuing either warrant was not met, according to the court.
“As a result, both warrants were issued unlawfully,” Layton said, concluding the searches violated the accused’s right under Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.
The ruling does not determine guilt or innocence, but could have significant consequences for the Crown’s case, which is scheduled to proceed later this year.
Kadunic, Fraser and a third suspect, Daniel Kawaguchi Johnson, were officially charged in February 2023, following a seizure of seven kilograms of illicit drugs, firearms and thousands in cash from homes in Maple Ridge and New Westminster.
