A convicted drug trafficker presently serving time for his reference to the overdose demise of a minor was caught smuggling medicine into jail utilizing drones whereas serving a earlier sentence.
In accordance with a doc from the Parole Board of Canada, Laxshan Mylvaganam smuggled $50,000 price of medication into his minimal safety jail in November 2022. Regardless of being caught, he was not charged and was launched.
Mylvaganam was first arrested in Montreal in March 2022 and charged with drug trafficking offences. In a pretrial ruling, a choose described him as a seasoned trafficker who made numerous cash promoting a wide range of medicine on social media.
He pled responsible and was sentenced to 33 months in jail. However he was out in March 2024 — his statutory launch date.
He was arrested once more in September and pleaded responsible to extra trafficking fees. Police mentioned that, regardless of nonetheless being incarcerated on the time, he was concerned in working the web drug-selling platform that bought opioids to Mathis Boivin, a 15-year-old who overdosed in his bed room on Dec. 22, 2023.
A brand new parole board choice reveals that whereas he was serving his first sentence, Mylvaganam was caught utilizing drones to smuggle medicine into jail.
His alleged involvement in drone smuggling whereas incarcerated and his avoidance of felony fees is a component of a bigger downside of widespread contraband smuggling into Canada’s prisons — and the problem of holding prisoners and drone operators accountable for it.
‘You might be speculated to be charged for this’
Mylvaganam started smuggling medicine into jail inside two weeks of being transferred to a minimal safety jail in November 2022. In accordance with the parole board choice, he was caught smuggling $50,000 price of hash into the jail by way of a drone.
The choice cites “three dependable sources” that mentioned Mylvaganam was the person behind a community that “launched contraband by drone,” and says that on at the least one different event, in January 2023, he introduced one other cargo of contraband into the jail utilizing a drone.
Regardless of the proof that advised he was the one behind these drone deliveries, Mylvaganam was not charged with a criminal offense and obtained his statutory launch in March 2024 — regardless that by that point, correctional officers knew about his involvement within the drone smuggling, the choice says.
The case of a convicted drug trafficker whose on-line drug-selling platform was related to the demise of a Quebec teen has some calling for stronger actions in opposition to inmates who commit crimes whereas in jail.
When he discovered that Mylvaganam had confronted no fees for the alleged smuggling inside jail, Mathis’s father, Christian Boivin, mentioned he was confused.
“I do not perceive why. Even if you’re in jail, it is drug trafficking. You might be speculated to be charged for this,” he mentioned. “When you get caught with medicine in jail, you get nothing? It is unusual.”
Correctional Companies Canada mentioned in an announcement to CBC that “measures had been taken” on this case, but it surely could not disclose what, due to the Privateness Act. Mylvaganam was transferred to a medium safety jail after he was alleged to have been concerned within the second drone supply in January 2023.
A widespread concern
Jeff Wilkins, the nationwide president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, described drone smuggling as a “pandemic,” and mentioned guards battle to carry prisoners accountable for it.
“It looks like the accountability for our inmate inhabitants is on the lower. Inmates really feel, and our members really feel, as if there aren’t any penalties and that is one thing that should change,” he mentioned.
“In the event that they’re investigated and correctly tried, they must be held accountable for that behaviour. They’re placing folks’s lives in jeopardy.”
Drone contraband deliveries are occurring at federal establishments throughout the nation day-after-day, Wilkins mentioned — and but there are comparatively few folks charged with drug trafficking offences in reference to them.
The deliveries of medication and different contraband, together with cellphones and weapons, create a way more harmful surroundings for guards and the inmates themselves, Wilkins mentioned. The drug market inside prisons results in extra violence.
It additionally makes the surroundings extra hazardous for guards. Intoxicated prisoners, along with being antithetical to the thought of prisons as rehabilitation services, are extra unpredictable, he mentioned.
Boivin has been crucial of the 42-month sentence Mylvaganam acquired for drug trafficking related to his son’s demise.
He has mentioned that the police instructed him that Mylvaganam solely confronted drug trafficking fees — not manslaughter — as a result of they may not show who, precisely, had bought Mathis the medicine that killed him, solely that he purchased it on Mylvaganam’s platform.
Had Mylvaganam been charged and convicted of drug smuggling whereas in jail two years in the past, it may need led to a extra extreme sentence, he mentioned.
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