Russell Peters jokes that the only thing the desi accent is good for is cutting tension, while Vikrum Sequeira has decoded how the desi head wiggle signals affability. Indeed, you can usually count on desis to be friendly and amiable.
So when a certain Francis Devandra Raj dug a tunnel from Canada to the U.S., it was purely to promote cross-border comity. The three-by-five tunnel was fortified with rebar and concrete, lit and ventilated. In fact, this undercover brother’s purposes were so peaceful that he was using the tunnel to send serene B.C. bud into the grateful arms of American stoners everywhere.
I just can’t see why the U.S. government doesn’t agree ;) They arrested Raj and two buddies from Surrey, B.C. yesterday on charges of drug smuggling. But one thing remains the same, desis’ pioneering nature. The tunnel is the very first cross-border subterranean passage between Canada and the U.S ever known to exist.
Federal agents have shut down an elaborate, 360-foot drug-smuggling tunnel dug underneath the U.S.-Canadian border — the first such passageway discovered along the nation’s northern edge… The tunnel ran from a quonset hut on the Canadian side and ended under the living room of a home on the U.S. side, 300 feet from the border. Built with lumber, concrete and metal reinforcing bars, it was equipped with lights and ventilation, and ran underneath a highway…Francis Devandra Raj, 30; Timothy Woo, 34; and Jonathan Valenzuela, 27, of Surrey, British Columbia, were arrested Wednesday… Raj owns the property under the quonset hut. [Link]
The smugglers were apparently religious. I’d give anything to know which saints were found inside the tunnel — Bob Marley? Lakshmi, goddess of wealth? Or, more appropriately for a tunnel, Ganeshji, remover of obstacles?
That tunnel was 3 feet wide and 5 feet high with a concrete floor. It had wood-beam supports, fiberglass walls, ventilation, video security and groundwater-removal systems. Several altars with flowers and pictures of saints also were found inside. [Link]
The police used some pretty high-tech methods to find the tunnel. But really, all they had to do was look for a bunch of dudes with red eyes giggling hysterically.
Investigators used a machine that can “see” underground, a video-equipped robot, a drug-sniffing dog and an air horn to find it. [Link]
All joking aside, the lucrative pot trade has fueled a boom in violent crime among Punjabi gangs in Vancouver (thanks, DesiDancer):
Young Indo-Canadian and South Asian deceased men dominate police files in Canada’s westernmost province of British Columbia like no other ethnic groups. And the province is setting up a special police task force following the deaths of 90 men in extreme gang violence since 1992…A typical case is that of Saranjit Gary Rai, who was 22 in 2001 when he was “shot to death, execution-style, by a single gunman in a hair salon,” Vancouver police said. Another is Robby Kandola, 31, “a well-known underworld figure in the Indo-Canadian community,” who died in a 2002 drive-by shooting outside his highrise apartment in the upscale city centre, police said. [Link]
In the past 13 years, police have reported 76 young men killed in the Vancouver area in gang-related violence… “They are Indo-Canadians killing Indo-Canadians,” said Kash Heed, commanding officer of the 3rd Police District in Vancouver. “Seventy-six murders … mainly within one ethnic group. The cycle of violence, we’ve not cracked it yet…”
In Blaine, Wash., Joe Giuliano, assistant chief at the local U.S. Border Patrol office, said 23 Canadian smugglers have been arrested on the U.S. side of the border this year. “Virtually all marijuana smuggling in the past fiscal year is either directly or indirectly tied back to the Indo-Canadian community,” Giuliano said… [Link]
… Vancouver has been caught in the grip of a gangland war that reads like the script for one of the Godfather movies or The Untouchables… One was shot dead in rush-hour traffic, another at his friend’s wedding. The groom was injured too: collateral damage. Another was killed in plain view of 300 people on the floor of a crowded nightclub. No witnesses…
… the gang war has been the dark accompaniment of a success story that reached its peak in this new century when Ujjal Dosanjh became the first Indo-Canadian premier in our history… Police have been stymied by what has been called “a wall of silence” around the close-knit community. [Link]
The gang members involved are generally not poor:
The authorities blame drug deals gone bad and local turf wars, mostly involving well-to-do young people of Indian descent… The gang members are often from well-off families, local leaders and officials said. “Unlike in other countries, people involved in the gang activity here are not the poor or disadvantaged,” said Wallace T. Oppal, a justice of the Court of Appeal of British Columbia.“For the most part, kids involved here are people who come from middle-class and upper-class homes. They get involved for the glamour.” [Link]
One of the strangest developments in the original blood feud: a female juror began sleeping with one of the defendants.
… the killings can be traced to a dispute between Bindy Johal and Ron Donsanjh, two notorious drug dealers… A juror, Gillian Guess, was later charged and convicted of obstruction of justice, because she had a relationship with one of the co-defendants, authorities said. [Link]
