NINE GUILTY IN MASSIVE DRUG BUST

Nine people were found guilty on Tuesday of involvement in the biggest hashish bust in B.C.  history.

The nine were captured after mounties stormed a fish boat docked at Fanny Bay with nearly 10 tonnes of hashish aboard, and captured an additional 2.3 tonnes from a ship at sea.

Seven men were hauling bags of drugs from the fish boat Ansare II to a waiting truck when police surprised them at 2:10 a.m., Nov.  4, 1998, RCMP Sgt.  Duncan Gray said at the time.

The drugs were packaged in 20-kilogram bags, each containing 20 one-kilogram bricks of hashish.

The raid capped a 16-month investigation involving the RCMP and inter- national police forces, Canada and U.S.  customs, the U.S.  Coast Guard and aircraft stationed at CFB Comox and Greenwood, Nova Scotia.

A few days after the raid in Fanny Bay, police seized the 100-foot Blue Dawn off the west coast of Vancouver Island and confiscated an additional 2.3 tonnes of hashish.

The Blue Dawn was apparently the "mother ship" from which the Ansare II un-loaded its cache of drugs.

Vancouver RCMP had begun to investigate a suspected hashish smuggling ring 20 months earlier when the drug section received a tip from police in Halifax.

The Vancouver Island drug section launched a similar investigation in September 1998, but neither unit realized the investigations were related until a few weeks before the drugs landed in Fanny Bay, police said.

Police traced the Blue Dawn to a port in Crete and tracked her through ports in Sri Lanka and Thailand before she sailed for the B.C.  coast, police said.

Five CP-140 Aurora aircraft from CFB Comox kept the Blue Dawn under surveillance as she approached Vancouver Island, Air Force Capt.  David Krayden said.

The squadron devoted about 300 hours of flying time to the surveillance and aircraft from the 415 Squadron at Greenwood, N.S.  flew about 100 hours.

Five people were tried in Nanaimo in 2000 and handed three to five-year sentences for possession of hashish for trafficking.

They were initially charged with importation of hashish, but Judge Sidney Clark dismissed the importation charge because there was no wiretap evidence of conspiracy.

The five received three to five-year sentences.

The nine people convicted in Vancouver on Tuesday were:

Sanford Hately, captain and owner of the Blue Dawn, Joel Hately, Sanford's twin brother, guilty of two counts; Kurt Guilbride, guilty of four counts, Ronald Grant, guilty of one count: Sylvie Goyer, guilty of one count, Ronald Thomson, guilty of four counts; Richard Farrington guilty of two counts; Wolfgang Fiznar, guilty of four counts.

Judge Elizabeth Arnold released the nine on bail to await sentencing.