Trial began last week for a known Fort St. John fentanyl dealer on his latest round of drug trafficking charges.

It’s the second time in under three years that Dana Andrew Nazarek has appeared in B.C. Supreme Court for selling the opioid, this time charged with 16 counts of drug trafficking, illegal weapons possession, and possessing the proceeds of crime.

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He has pleaded not guilty. A jury for the trial was selected on Jan. 20, with two RCMP investigators taking the witness stand last week.

Nazarek was arrested in February 2018 after police raided his 87 Avenue home in Mathews Park. Officers seized 800 fentanyl tablets, various amounts of cocaine, heroin, and meth, as well as $38,000 in cash and several loaded firearms, including handguns and a 12-gauge shotgun.

RCMP last week testified Nazarek’s home was a known stash house for the local drug trade, and had been under three days of surveillance before the raid. Much of the defense’s cross-examination focused on how the RCMP conducted the raid and collected evidence.

The trial is expected to last four weeks, and Crown prosecutors plan to call four more RCMP investigators, and introduce written admissions as evidence.

Nazarek is expected to take the stand this week. He has denied possession of the firearms that were seized, and last week presiding Justice Andrew P. Mayer ruled several pieces of counterfeit identification could not not be included as evidence as the Crown has not sought forgery charges.

Nazarek was sentenced to 40 months in jail in July 2018 for trafficking fentanyl and other drugs after a police raid on his home in December 2013. In that bust, police seized more than 2,000 fentanyl pills disguised as Oxycontin.

He remains in custody.

Email reporter Tom Summer at tsummer@ahnfsj.ca.