By Dale Boyd
A Mexican national is spending the next five and a half years in Canadian jail for attempting to smuggle 12.8 kilograms of methamphetamine from the U.S. into Canada near the Osoyoos Port of Entry.
Armando Esparza-Ochoa, 31, pleaded guilty in November, 2019 to one count of importing a controlled substance and was sentenced to eight years in prison on March 5 in B.C. Supreme Court in Penticton.
Federal Crown prosecutor Dave Peltier said it was “essentially by luck” that authorities captured Esparza-Ochoa on motion sensor cameras attempting to cross the border with a backpack in an orchard about 300 meters west of the Osoyoos Port of Entry on Sept. 1, 2018.
The RCMP’s Federal Serious and Organized Crime Unit based in Osoyoos worked with U.S. Border Patrol and Osoyoos and Oliver RCMP to locate Esparza-Ochoa, who was spotted with forward looking infrared cameras. Esparza-Ochoa was found by police lying on his stomach hiding under some brush about 30 meters away from the backpack near 107th Street and 6th Avenue in Osoyoos.
Esparza-Ochoa, an undocumented immigrant who was living in the U.S. making a living picking fruit, said in a pre-sentence report that a coworker he knew in Washington offered him $2,500 to take the drugs across the border, and the man offered to help Esparza-Ochoa’s family get to the U.S. as part of the transaction.
Esparza-Ochoa fears violent retribution for himself and his family from the people who provided him with the methamphetamine, according to defence counsel Michael Patterson — who sought a sentence of four to five years in jail for his client. Esparza-Ochoa was convinced smuggling the drugs would lead to assistance in getting his younger brothers into the U.S., Patterson said.
“For promise of migration of his family, Mr. Esparza has literally sold his liberty,” Patterson said.
While jail was inevitable for his client, Patterson said the “physical and violent consequences for him will happen after he is released from jail.”
Crown said it is “ironic” Esparza-Ochoa is intending to seek refugee status in Canada upon his release.
“While incarcerated for bringing this amount of substance, the methamphetamine, into Canada, now he is seeking the protection of Canada for the bad choice, the very bad choice he recognizes he made,” Peltier said.
Justice Gary Weatherill, while handing down the eight-year jail sentence, noted that Esparza-Ochoa “will likely be deported from Canada” upon completion of his sentence.
The methamphetamine Esparza-Ochoa carried across the border ranges in value depending on how it is sold, going for up to $1.28 million on the street — if sold in 0.1-gram increments, Crown said.
Esparza-Ochoa has no known criminal record in Canada, the U.S. or Mexico. He has been in custody since the incident, roughly 1.5 years. With enhanced pre-trial custody credit, he has already served two years, three months and six days of his sentence.
“You will be 36 when you’ve served your prison time. You were talked into a very risky venture of importing a very seriously harmful drug into Canada for profit. You were caught. At age 36 you will be still young and will have the rest of your life ahead of you,” Weatherill said. “Do not give into temptation to try and make a quick profit no matter how tempting it may be or as easy as it may sound.”
