Delta police and Burnaby RCMP combined forces in March 2016 as officers discovered a major drug operation where fentanyl was being mixed with other substances to make it look like heroin. Photograph By DELTA POLICE
Two men have received significant prison sentences in connection to a multi-jurisdictional fentanyl drug bust in 2016.
Delta’s Adam Summers received a sentence of five years, while his co-accused, Scott Pipping of Surrey, received 15 years.
Pipping was also ordered to pay $35,000 to Mani Ranjbar whose Burnaby apartment was used as a clandestine drug lab.
Delta police and Burnaby RCMP combined forces in March 2016 as officers discovered a major drug operation where fentanyl was being mixed with other substances to make it look like heroin. Officers seized $1.5 million in cash, multiple firearms, computers and cell phones, as well as fentanyl, 12 kilograms of cocaine, 4.5 kilograms of heroin and $100,000 worth of pills, including OxyContin.
“These are significant sentences and they reflect the scope and impact of this lab,” said Delta police Chief Neil Dubord. “This was a massive lab, and a key part of the drug trade at the time in Metro Vancouver. An entire kitchen in a Burnaby apartment had been converted to process the fentanyl. I’m very proud of the work of our officers in shutting this down, and have no doubt that many lives were saved as a result of this work.”
Pipping was understood to be Summers’ boss in the scheme, according to earlier court documents.
Ranjbar’s apartment was one of three homes searched in March 2016 in connection with the drug bust. The other two were in Richmond and Surrey.
According to a lawsuit launched by Ranjbar, the Burnaby landlord had rented the suite to Stephen Takeshi Tajiri. Ranjbar alleges Tajiri then gave the drug dealers access to the suite.
Ranjbar said he found out about the clandestine drug lab three days after police executed their search warrant.
Ranjbar is suing Tajiri, Pipping, Summers and an unnamed woman for the destruction of appliances and fixtures in the apartment and for the contamination of the suite with fentanyl and other toxic chemicals.
He said the contamination had made the apartment “a serious threat to life” and that he had to pay for multiple inspections to make sure the place was properly decontaminated of toxic drugs.
Pipping and Summers face another civil suit from the province’s director of civil forfeiture, who is going after a car owned by Summers and nearly $1.5 million in alleged drug money seized from the Burnaby, Richmond and Surrey residences.
None of the allegations made in the lawsuits have been proven in court.
— With files from Cornelia Naylor/Burnaby Now
