Ecstasy lab assistant handed 18-month jail sentence | Canada

Ecstasy lab assistant handed 18-month jail sentence

VANCOUVER - When the police arrived, the large-scale clandestine ecstasy lab was filled with so much smoke the officers couldn't see well enough to enter.
When they finally snared the employee who was trying desperately to destroy the evidence, they found enough chemicals to make 180,000 tablets of the illicit drug. One of two men arrested on Jan. 7, 2006 was wearing a shoulder holster with ammunition. Inside the lab, police found a Browning semi-automatic 9-mm handgun. The man wearing the holster was Bryan John Caskey, considered the brains behind the lab, located in Agassiz in the Fraser Valley. He was earlier sentenced to four years in prison.
The 36-year-old lab assistant, Ike Kraps, was handed an 18-month jail sentence this week by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Brian Joyce in Chilliwack.

Kraps had been charged with production of methylenedioxyamphetamine, also known as MDMA or ecstacy, and obstructing a police officer by trying to destroy the evidence when police knocked on the door of a large shed at 2285 Lougheed Highway.

The RCMP had received a tip in 2005 regarding suspicious purchases of toluene and methyl hydrate, chemicals regularly used in the production of synthetic drugs, from Lordco Auto Parts in Agassiz.

A surveillance operation led police to follow two men in a grey Ford Explorer -- Kraps was the passenger and Caskey was driving -- who picked up an order of methyl hydrate at Lordco and took it to the illegal lab, where the two men were seen mixing chemicals in a barrel.

When police executed a search warrant, Caskey and Kraps refused demands to come out with their hands up. Instead, police could hear breaking glass, loud banging and running water as the two men tried destroying the lab.

Police tried, unsuccessfully, to break the shed door down with a battering ram. Eventually, one of the police officers was able to open a large garage door but couldn't enter because of the smoke.

Caskey and Kraps were wearing gas masks and continued destroying evidence. Finally, police entered the shed wearing respirators. They found enough chemicals to produce at least 14 kilograms of ecstasy with an estimated street value of $900,000.

Before sentencing, the judge took into account the fact Kraps had no previous criminal record, he pleaded guilty and was recently employed as a sheet metal worker in Fort Nelson, where he made $7,000 a month.

The judge decided against imposing a conditional sentence, to be served under house arrest, finding it would not adequately meet the objectives of denunciation and deterrence.

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