Documents found at the Vancouver house of alleged Chinese gangster Yi Feng Wu connect him to major drug shipments

Documents found at the Vancouver house of alleged Chinese gangster Yi Feng Wu connect him to major drug shipments, a police detective testified yesterday at Wu's immigration hearing.Wu, 49, is seeking official admissibility to Canada. The federal Ministry of Public Safety is trying to have him ruled inadmissible and deported, alleging he's a cell leader of the Big Circle Boys, a Chinese gang. It would be Canada's first deportation, based on organized-crime activity, of a person never convicted of a crime.Friday, Vancouver police Det. James Fisher testified that a 2006 search of Wu's $1.1-million home turned up papers suggesting Wu was an international drug-trafficking boss.Faxed 2006 arrest records from Los Angeles documented the booking of two men caught with 167 kilograms of cocaine. Those men told investigators they were to give the drugs to someone who would bring them to B.C., Fisher said. The front page of a four-person indictment from Washington state, related to seizure of 41 kg of cocaine and eight kilograms of powdered ecstasy, was also found in Wu's house
Those documents were likely sent to Wu as proof that people contracted to move drugs from the U.S. to Canada had been arrested, and that police seized the drugs, Fisher said. When drug couriers are arrested with the product, they need to show that they didn't steal the drugs, Fisher said.A third document discovered at Wu's home reflects a drug boss's responsibility to look after couriers arrested while in his service, Fisher said. Police found a page of notes concerning a $70,000 lawyer's fee for two men identified as drivers. The men were charged with smuggling 16 kg of cocaine, in a shipment of vegetables, across the border into Windsor, Ont., Fisher said."The smugglers would have their legal fees covered by the person who engaged them in the smuggling," Fisher said.Wu was charged with heroin trafficking after police seized 340 grams of heroin in 1996, but was acquitted when a police officer failed to show up in court to give evidence.Police allege that in 2001, Wu received a large shipment of cocaine from the U.S. in a Vancouver intersection, and slipped away with the drugs from a police take-down.
Wu, who came to Canada 18 years ago from China as a refugee claimant, has risen in underworld stature from a mid-level heroin dealer to a position of power in the world of organized crime, Fisher testified yesterday.
"He is a drug trafficker, and participates in that with his own organization and with other organizations," Fisher said.
Under cross-examination by Wu's lawyer, Chris Ho, Fisher admitted that conclusions about Wu's alleged criminality based on the documents found in his house were just inferences. Ho also attacked police statements that Wu received a cocaine shipment in a Vancouver intersection. "There was an allegation there was importation of cocaine, but none was found," Ho said.
Wu's lack of criminal convictions doesn't mean he's not a criminal, Fisher said.
"Our success in convicting organized crime members in British Columbia is not what I would've hoped it would be," Fisher said, adding that criminals can put more resources into avoiding convictions than police can in trying to convict them.
"Law enforcement is at a distinct disadvantage," Fisher said.