U.S. authorities say they stopped a small boat carrying a large load of methamphetamine after seeing it go down into the water near the Canadian border with Washington state.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said officers stopped the 5.5-meter Bayliner speedboat on Wednesday in the San Juan Islands, east of Victoria, on its way to British Columbia waters.
They reported finding 1,432 pounds (650 kilograms) of methamphetamine on board, packed in 28 canvas bags secured with luggage padlocks.
The ship’s occupant, identified as Alberta resident Ted Karl Faupel, was arrested on a drug count. He made his first appearance in U.S. District Court in Seattle on Thursday.
His lawyer, federal public defender Vanessa Pai-Thompson, declined to comment.
A photo provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office shows more than two dozen canvas bags that officials say were filled with methamphetamine and were found aboard a ship near the San Juan Islands. (Provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office)
According to a federal criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Seattle, Faupel told investigators that he had been walking near a marina in Sydney, BC, when someone approached him and offered him $ 1,000 for move a ship from Sydney to Anacortes, Washington, and back.
According to the complaint, he said he left Vancouver Island on Tuesday. He said four men met him at a boat dock in Washington State Parks, grabbed the boat in a trailer and dropped him off at an inn. The next day, he was taken back to the dock and left with the newly loaded ship to return to Canada.
He said he did not know what was in the canvas bags, according to the complaint.