Ecstasy importers jailed after trying to set up their own drug-making lab in B.C.

Publication title: National Post
Pages: A8 Section: News
Publication date: Jan 14, 2000
Copyright: (Copyright National Post 2000)

A 54-year-old grandfather and a 67-year-old pharmacist, both of British Columbia, were sent to prison this week for conspiring to set up a lab to make massive amounts of the popular rave drug Ecstasy.

Michael Russell, a grandfather with no previous criminal record, was sent to prison for four years after pleading guilty to conspiracy to traffic methamphetamine and trafficking MDMA and MDEA, known as Ecstasy. 

Russell, who has three daughters, had worked for a number of years in the oil refinery business in the Caribbean. 

His co-accused, Brooks Farrell Grenfal, was sentenced to two years less a day, which will be served in a provincial jail. Grenfal was convicted in 1990 of income-tax evasion and sentenced to 20 months in jail. Russell got a harsher sentence because he imported Ecstasy from Holland and Belgium and masterminded the plan to set up the drug lab in Squamish, about 50 kilometres north of Vancouver. 

Russell had taken steps to lease a residence in Squamish and had purchased all the necessary precursor chemicals and equipment to manufacture the drug. 

The B.C. Supreme Court heard that the chemicals Russell had stockpiled were capable of producing about 74 kilograms of methamphetamine, which police said sells for $33,000 a kilogram. Justice Selwyn Romilly was told the lab was capable of producing $2.4-million worth of the designer drug. The plan never came to fruition because of a dispute that arose between Russell and Joseph Sostar, who was to operate the lab. 

RCMP began investigating in 1996, and found Russell travelled to Europe to buy Ecstasy. 

He sent packages of pills to post office boxes in Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton. The packages were sent to fictional companies, but some drugs were sent to the wrong companies by mistake. 

Police obtained a wiretap authorization that revealed Russell had placed another order in Holland for 5,000 to 7,000 Ecstasy pills. Grenfal was responsible for leasing a large number of postal boxes in Greater Vancouver and distributing the drug to low-level dealers. 

Another man was responsible for the postal boxes in Calgary and Edmonton. Russell and Grenfal were arrested April 11, 1997, while picking up a package of Ecstasy at a postal box. Police found another 1,300 pills in the trunk of their car, outside.