B.C. police seek Interpol notice for return of cocaine smuggler who escaped to India

SURREY, B.C. — Police in British Columbia are asking Interpol to post a red notice for the arrest and return of a Surrey man who escaped to India after being convicted of smuggling cocaine into Canada from the United States.

RCMP say 60-year-old truck driver Raj Kumar Mehmi was sentenced in absentia by a B.C. provincial court judge to 15 years in prison in November after his arrest in 2017 for smuggling 80 kilograms of cocaine.

A red notice asks member countries to help locate, arrest and extradite a person to face criminal charges, and India is a member of Interpol. 

Police say the 80 sealed bricks of cocaine were hidden inside a truck owned and driven by Mehmi while he was at the Pacific Highway border crossing into Metro Vancouver.