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A young man who pleaded guilty to trafficking in heroin and fentanyl has received a suspended sentence and three years probation.

The sentencing hearing for Karan Dewat, who was 18 at the time of the offence committed in Victoria in May 2017, was told that the accused was enmeshed in a criminal lifestyle and associating with gangsters.

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He’d accumulated a drug debt to the gang and saw his $2,000 debt escalated to $13,000, which was referred to as “interest payments.”

The gang, which is not identified in a ruling released in the case, forced him to give up his BMW as a partial satisfaction of the debt and had him selling drugs at the street level in the Lower Mainland.

He and another young person were assigned by the gang to travel to Victoria and sell drugs in a “dial-a-dope operation.”

Dewat, who was on bail for another trafficking offence at the time of his arrest, and the other young person, who is not identified, had been contacted by Victoria police conducting an undercover drug operation.