Former U.S. Customs officer sentenced for smuggling cigarettes into Canada

PETER JENSEN - THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

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A former U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer was sentenced Tuesday, June 23, after he was caught trying to smuggle cigarettes into Canada at the Pacific Highway Truck Crossing in 2005.

Jonathan H. Fletcher was found guilty in a Surrey, B.C., provincial court in February and was sentenced Tuesday to a year in a Canadian jail and ordered to pay a $16,000 fine.

Fletcher, a Vancouver, B.C., resident, was working at the Point Roberts port of entry when he was caught in March 2005, said Mike Milne, a Customs and Border Protection spokesman. He was fired shortly after that, Milne said.

Fletcher was returning to Canada from a day trip to Blaine on March 11, 2005, when Canadian border officers found 22 cartons of undeclared cigarettes and a bottle of alcohol in his car trunk, according to the Canadian Border Services Agency.

Fletcher purchased the cigarettes at a duty free store in the U.S. earlier that day, according to the agency.

A further investigation revealed Fletcher had smuggled about 22 cartons of cigarettes into Canada from the United States 54 times from 2003 to 2005.