SEATTLE — A former investigator with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has been sentenced to eight years in prison for helping to lead a marijuana- and cocaine-smuggling ring linked to the Hells Angels.
Prosecutors said 46-year-old Rapinder Singh Sidhu recruited a border guard on the Canadian side across from Lynden to allow motor homes and minivans packed with cocaine enter that country. He also choreographed the movement of lower-level drug mules who brought marijuana south and cocaine north for several years before authorities broke up the conspiracy in 2008.
Sidhu, who left the RCMP in 2003, was one of 56 people indicted. The investigation netted 1,700 pounds of cocaine and $3.5 million. Ringleader Robert Shannon is serving a 20-year prison term.
Sidhu was extradited to the U.S. last March and pleaded guilty in October. Before his sentencing in U.S. District Court on Friday, the U.S. attorney’s office in Seattle said used his police knowledge to become an “underworld law enforcement adviser.”
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