BC Buds Busted

Here’s a drug bust story with a twist: sekrit tunnel built between Canada and the US, pretty much under surveillance by US and Canadian authorities almost from the beginning of construction, with sekrit cameras and microphones placed during a “sneak and peek” inside the US endpoint, an abandoned house. Hundreds of pounds of “B.C. Bud” seized when the smugglers were pretty much under the eye of authorities the whole time other than when they were underground.

Look for this to show up on an episode of “The Wire” soon, except with no dipshit locals in flannel shirts. All of the locations mentioned in the story are basic, run-of-the-mill exurbs and almost-rural areas, not exotic locales at all. This is probably the biggest thing to happen in any of them since the monster truck-pull show came to the fairgrounds.

The three men charged — Francis Devandra Raj, 30; Timothy Woo, 34; and Jonathan Valenzuela, 27 — are all from Surrey, B.C. They were arrested after authorities said they carried 93 pounds of marijuana in hockey and garbage bags through the completed tunnel.

Border authorities watched as the men delivered the drugs to a woman who was waiting at Bellis Fair Mall in Bellingham and arrested them when they returned to the house on East Boundary Road on the U.S. side of the border. The woman, who was driving with an 18-month-old child, was arrested after a Washington State Patrol officer stopped her car in Ellensburg.

Benson said a Renton man was arrested Saturday during a traffic stop in Enumclaw with 110 pounds of marijuana brought through the tunnel.

I like the part where the mommy is transporting a bag of dope bigger than her entire kid and his carseat combined. Nice one, mommy. Way to tell your child “Just say no.”

Naturally, the US Feds are all exercised about the security implications, and maybe eventually there might have been some risk. But it appears that this tunnel was built by BC buds to transport BC bud, and it’s likely that’s all these flannelheads were planning.