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Surveillance was set up at the home and an undercover officer pretending to be a dealer from the Northwest Territories made contact with Ranu and made a string of high-volume deals in a taxi.

Court heard that Ranu told the undercover officer about “black fentanyl” that was a new and more potent form of fentanyl. Ranu also told the officer to try to sell fentanyl instead of heroin and suggested they launder drug money through Vancouver’s casinos.

Phillips wrote that Ranu was now 32 and while on bail had become a settled family man. Ranu’s parents divorced when he was young and he was often left at home alone while his mother worked. He went to three elementary schools and multiple high schools and this made it hard for him to meet and keep friends. He had been jailed previously for low-level drug-dealing in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

“Mr. Ranu knew how powerful fentanyl was and he actively encouraged the undercover officer to get his customers to switch from heroin to fentanyl for monetary reasons. He preyed on persons who are dependent on drugs with the social cost and human suffering that conduct entails,” Phillips wrote. “Mr Ranu had a taxi on hand for his use. He had a large quantity of cash in his Richmond residence. He made clear he knew how to launder the proceeds of crime in casinos.”

At the time of Operation Tainted, fentanyl — a synthetic opioid or painkiller similar to heroin — was associated with one-quarter of over 300 overdose deaths in B.C. in 2014. Since that time the fentanyl crisis has become an epidemic, with 1,316 drug-users dying of fentanyl overdoses in B.C. in 2018.

dcarrigg@postmedia.com

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