A B.C. mortgage broker who sought to import huge amounts of cocaine was convicted on five counts of drug trafficking and conspiracy in Vancouver Provincial Court on Dec. 3.
Judge James Sutherland is now mulling a joint Crown and defence proposal for a global seven-year prison sentence for Martino Calabretti.
The Lower Mainland resident was one of four men charged in an RCMP investigation.
While represented by lawyer Joven Narwal, Calabretti pleaded not guilty to the charges but was convicted by Sutherland after hearing an agreed statement of facts from Crown prosecutor Sarah Paulson.
The convictions were for the cocaine conspiracy, much of which involved work by undercover officers, and four counts of trafficking in MDMA (ecstasy).
“This was high-quality MDMA,” she said. “There are serious dangers associated with MDMA.”
She suggested sentences for the MDMA convictions were seven years for the cocaine conspiracy, three years for a 10-kilo amount, two years each for one-kilo convictions and six months for a 12-gram MDMA amount.
All sentences should run concurrently, Sutherland heard.
Paulson told Sutherland trafficking has significant impacts in the community.
“It infuses violence into our society as a predictable consequence,” she said. “He is dealing with large quantities for profit.”
Sutherland heard that Calabretti was the boss of the organization.
“He is a broker making connections . . . to crystalize the objectives of the conspiracy,” she said.
Lower Mainland residents Calabretti, Daniel Alexander and Zlatko Gavric faced charges of conspiracy to import cocaine. Calabretti and Vincenzo James Sansalone faced charges of trafficking in MDMA and MDA, a synthetic amphetamine.
Sansalone, a member of the Hells Angels Haney chapter was sentenced in December 2023 to four years in prison after being convicted in Vancouver Provincial Court.
Alexander was sentenced on March 9, 2023, to five years in prison.
On April 27, 2023, Garvic was handed a four-year prison sentence.
The investigation
The charges were laid in April 2021.
The lengthy and complex investigation was initially launched by the Kelowna RCMP Serious Crime Unit and quickly extended across multiple Canadian and U.S. jurisdictions.
Through the use of numerous advanced investigative techniques, including undercover operations and wire taps, investigators were able to gather sufficient evidence to arrest the main suspects, police said.
Paulson said Calabretti had said he wanted to get the cocaine situation to the point where they would purchase 50 kilograms of cocaine every 10 days.
He had gone to San Diego and wanted to buy 200 kilograms of cocaine, the court heard.
“This is a staggering amount of cocaine,” Paulson told Sutherland.
However, she said, Calabretti was keen on testing the drugs to ensure their quality.
Part of the plan was to have drugs delivered to the Canada-U.S. border with another man being paid $23,000 to organize that work.
The Crown told Sutherland there was “overwhelming evidence” for the offences as she invited him to convict Calabretti.
“Greed inspired the meeting of the minds,” she said of the conspiracy.
