The owner of a rural Okanagan property the RCMP alleges once held Canada’s largest and most sophisticated methamphetamine and fentanyl lab is fighting the B.C. government’s attempt to seize his land, stating he had no idea what his tenant was doing there.
In a response filed in British Columbia Supreme Court this week, Michael Driehuyzen denies almost everything in the Civil Forfeiture Office’s Jan. 31 notice of civil claim.
He agrees that he bought the property in Falkland, B.C., in 2007 and has a mortgage on it. But Mr. Driehuyzen, an electrician in the Vancouver suburb of Abbotsford, states he purchased the property with his savings and is asking the Civil Forfeiture Office to drop the pursuit of his land because he had no idea about any of the alleged criminal activity.
His response does not name the tenant renting his property when the lab was operating. The Civil Forfeiture Office states the lab was producing mass amounts of meth, fentanyl and MDMA from at least the beginning of last year until the police raid in October.
His filing also alleges the office is relying on evidence from the RCMP that Mounties obtained by violating his Charter rights to be protected from unreasonable search and seizure.
“The Defendant, as landlord, did not participate or acquiesce in any unlawful activity at the Property done by his tenant or his tenant’s agents,” the Feb. 11 filing states.
Mr. Driehuyzen, who has no criminal record, declined to comment when reached Thursday.
Gaganpreet Randhawa, a 37-year-old Surrey man, is also named as a defendant in the civil suit.
Mr. Randhawa, who pleaded guilty to possessing cocaine, heroin and meth for the purpose of trafficking in 2017, is the lone person facing charges in relation to the RCMP’s bust of the lab. He is in jail in Surrey awaiting a bail hearing on Feb. 21 for numerous offences including planning to export meth abroad.
The Civil Forfeiture Office, which can seize assets from people without charging them criminally, is also seeking to seize a spectrometer and a chromatograph, both worth tens of thousands of dollars, and other equipment found in the RCMP raid.
When Mounties dismantled the lab, they seized $500,000 in cash; 54 kilograms of fentanyl; 390 kilograms of methamphetamine; 30 kilograms of MDMA; and several tonnes of precursor chemicals. The RCMP also seized a total of 89 firearms, including handguns, AR-15-style rifles and submachine guns, as well as small explosive devices, ammunition, silencers, high-capacity magazines and body armour.
The RCMP have linked the lab to another property they raided last September in Enderby, B.C., which housed 30 tonnes of precursor chemicals allegedly used by the lab. RCMP officials said they were particularly concerned to discover, for the first time in Western Canada, a particular methamphetamine precursor that has been made for years by cartels in Mexico.