A North Vancouver fentanyl dealer has been given a five-year prison term and will face almost certain deportation to the Philippines, where he fears murder by government death squads.
Between November 2017 and June 2018, Al Victor Pascual Inocencio sold cocaine, heroin and fentanyl to undercover officers 17 times, mostly in the parking lots of local fast food restaurants and big box stores. He pleaded guilty to trafficking in controlled substance in July 2018 and was sentenced in North Vancouver provincial court on Monday.
In several of those sales, he admitted to knowing the drugs he sold contained fentanyl.
In the last deal before his arrest, he sold 284 grams of fentanyl, which is considered 100 times more potent than morphine, for $20,000. The fentanyl seized by police tested 7.7 per cent pure. A dose of two per cent pure fentanyl is considered lethal, the court heard.
Inocencio’s lawyer characterized him as being naïve and otherwise of good character but,during his sentencing, Judge Joanne Challenger said it was clear Inocencio “turned a blind eye” to the harm he was causing drug users.
In 2017 and 2018, almost 100 people died of fentanyl overdoses in the North Shore and Coast Garibaldi area, she noted.
“The fentanyl crisis was in the news on an almost daily basis throughout those years. Mr. Inocencio must have known the danger he was creating to those using his products,” she said.
Both Crown and Inocencio’s defence agreed five years would be an appropriate prison term, but Judge Joanne Challenger also acknowledged the risk Inocencio faces after he has served his time.
“There are significant immigration consequences as result of his conviction. He will face deportation back to the Philippines unless he can prove that he will be killed there as a result of his conviction,” she said. “It is now common knowledge that in the Philippines, the government is engaged in extrajudicial killings of those people believed to be involved in the drug trade.”
Ultimately, Challenger said the joint-submission for a five-year prison term was appropriate, when compared with other sentences for convicted mid-level dial-a-dopers, and added the sentence would not bring the administration of justice into disrepute.
Challenger also agreed to the defence’s request to direct that Inocencio to serve his time in a medium or minimum security prison where he will have more opportunities to better himself.
Before the sentencing, more than a dozen friends and supporters held hands and prayed outside the courtroom. As soon as the hearing was adjourned, Inocencio was taken back into custody to begin his prison term. His wife left the courtroom in tears.
The Crown has also stayed a number of related charges that had been sworn against Inocencio’s brother.
