Dial-a-dope fentanyl dealer gets two year conditional sentence

A 22-year-old Surrey man who was part of a dial-a-dope operation selling deadly amounts of fentanyl and carfentanyl to drug users on the North Shore has been handed a two-year conditional jail sentence.

Judge Timothy Hinkson handed the sentence to Anmol Anu Toor Tuesday in North Vancouver provincial court after Toor pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of drugs for the purpose of trafficking.

Hinkson described Toor as a “street-level dealer” who was a “peon” in a larger dial-a-dope drug trafficking ring operating on the North Shore at the time.

According to an agreed statement of facts, Toor was a passenger in a rental vehicle under surveillance by police on May 19, 2021. Officers watched the car leave a house in North Vancouver, make a stop at Park Royal shopping centre, then stop at another house close to the courthouse in a manner consistent with drug trafficking, said Hinkson.

When police officers approached the vehicle, Toor threw a plastic bag out the window, striking the police officer in the chest with it.

That bag contained 30 smaller individually wrapped packages of drugs, said Hinkson, including 14 small pieces of crack cocaine totalling just over three grams, six small pieces of dark brown fentanyl totalling 1.79 grams and six small pieces of carfentanyl, totalling 1.21 grams. There were also “four small pieces of a pink or purple substance” later identified as containing a mix of drugs including fentanyl, carfentanyl and benzodiazepine.

The benzodiazepine is particularly dangerous as it doesn’t respond to Naloxone, normally used to reverse a drug overdose, the judge noted. Police estimated the street value of the fentanyl and carfentanyl at about $700, while the total value of the crack cocaine was about $360.

A subsequent search of Toor following his arrest turned up a cell phone in his pocket, a plastic bag containing seven oxycodone pills and a small folding knife. Police seized a cell phone, a knife and a wallet with $1,140 in cash from the driver. The vehicle also contained two cell phones and a large knife in the driver’s side door.

Hinkson said the dangerous nature of the drugs Toor was involved in trafficking “can’t be overstated.”

The same year Toor was arrested for trafficking, there were 2,224 suspected toxic drug deaths in B.C. – more than six deaths each day, said Hinkson, noting fentanyl is 100 times more potent than morphine, while carfentanyl is 100 times more potent than fentanyl.

Hinkson added because of the inconsistency between bags of similar-looking drugs, “users could never know what they were getting. And those selling the drugs could never know what they were giving, creating a high risk of overdose.”

In addition, “some of the fentanyl and carfentanyl was a very high potency,” said Hinkson.

Crown counsel asked for a jail sentence, noting Toor had continued to deal drugs for a period of time after his arrest.

In handing Toor a conditional sentence instead, Hinkson noted Toor’s young age, lack of a criminal record and attempts to address his own drug addiction.

Hinkson ordered that Toor serve the first 18 months of his sentence under house arrest, except for work and medical emergencies. Following that, Toor must obey a curfew between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m., followed by a further three months of a curfew beginning at 9 p.m.

Toor will also be subject to a three-year term of probation, during which time he will be required to complete community work service and obey a further curfew.

Toor has also been ordered to have no contact with his co-accused Shiva Manish Mudaliar.

Mudaliar was sentenced last year, relating to a different incident involving the same dial-a-dope operation, to a conditional sentence including six months of house arrest. A third man involved in the same drug ring also received a similar sentence last year.